Internal Funding

UTAR Research Fund (UTARRF) is an internal research grant scheme designed to provide seed funding to support UTAR researchers and students in implementing research projects and research related activities.

The UTAR Research Funding scheme (UTARRF) was established since 2005 with an initial amount of RM1 million allocated per annum. This amount was subsequently increased to RM3 million in year 2010.

Year 2011 onwards, the University management increased the annual allocation for UTARRF to RM5 million to boost research & development activities geared towards realizing the goal to transform UTAR into a Research University.  The cumulative UTARRF annual allocation is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: UTAR Research Fund (RM) total cumulative allocation per year

The University, guided by stringent and careful grant approval procedures, had initially awarded a funding amount of RM20,000.00 in 2005. The amount continued to register growth with a total cumulative of RM22.52 million awarded as at 31 December 2013 (Figure 2), in line with UTAR’s aspirations to be a research based university.     

Figure 2: Total cumulative amount awarded (RM) under UTAR Research Fund 
 

From the UTARRF that was awarded in 2013 for various Research Centres of the Faculties, a total of RM4.32 million was awarded for 138 projects applied in Cycle 1 and 2, 2013. The breakdown of the awarded projects to Faculties is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Number of projects awarded to Faculties in year 2013

Active Internal Funding Research Projects as at 31 December 2013 

In addition, a special allocation was also set aside for researcher and student research related activities. A total of RM758,421.49 funding was approved for the purpose. These activities include the following:

• 12th Invention and Innovation Awards, MTE 2013
• Chem-E-Car 2013
• Actuarial Challenge 2013
• ROBOCON 2013
• 2013 Schneider Electric East Asia Uni Challenge
• Shell Intervarsity Student Paper Presentation Contest
• Bayer Young Environmental Envoy
• NI ASEAN GSDA Awards 2013
• MSC Malaysia APICTA Awards 2013
• 5th TISE 2013
• 25th Architectural Students Workshop in UM
• The outstanding technopreneur competition TISE
• 5th i-ONE International Instrument Technology Innovation Competition
• BES-SEC Design Award
• 15th Inter-Collegiate Finance Competition
• Inter College Design Lab: A design thinking workshop competition
• International APICTA 2013 Awards
• IEM Chemical Engineering Design Competition 2013

External Funding

Experienced UTAR researchers are well-recognized for their research work. Since 2005, they have secured external funding in projects especially in the areas of Science and Engineering. Figure 4 below shows the amount of external fundings received (funding in UTAR) by our researchers as well as their collaboration with other organizations (funding not in UTAR) from years 2005 until 2013.

Figure 4: Funding in UTAR and Funding not in UTAR for Year 2005 - 2013

In year 2013, a total amount of RM 2.83 million was secured by the researchers (funding in UTAR) from external funding sources listed in Chart 1. UTAR researchers had also actively collaborated with other organizations/institutions (funding not in UTAR) in numerous external funded research projects amounting to a total of RM 3.19 million. The funding agencies/organizations are shown in Chart 2.

Chart 1: Funding in UTAR for 2013

 Chart 2: Funding not in UTAR for 2013