Research & Development
Annual Report 2018

Research Roadmap of UTAR

To achieve worldwide recognition, it is imperative that UTAR focus and excel in research, development and commercialisation (RDC) activities. A 5-year research roadmap (2010 - 2014) for UTAR was defined and announced to the university community in August 2009.

The research roadmap is an outline of the important outcomes and the corresponding key performance indicators (KPIs), the recommended approaches and steps for UTAR to pursue in order to achieve Research University status as defined by the Ministry of Education (MOE) of Malaysia. Clear and measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) were defined and relevant benchmarks were set in the roadmap.

To perpetuate UTAR further into realising its goals, the "UTAR Research, Development and Commercialisation: Enhancement Strategy and Plan for 2013" encompassing detailed improvement plans for Human Resource Development, Research Funding, Postgraduate Programme Promotion and Intake, Data Management & Reporting and UTAR Internal Research Funding Allocation were drawn up and implemented accordingly. The initiatives introduced include UTAR Strategic Research Fund, UTAR Postdoctoral Research Scholarship Scheme, UTAR Research Publication Scheme and UTAR Undergraduate Research Scheme.

Since 2013, UTAR has continued to strengthen its pursuance of certain key milestones as set in the UTAR 10-year Strategic Plan (2013 - 2022). Strategies for each of the following 5 focused areas were formulated under the Research & Development Focused Area of the Strategic Plan.

• Cross-disciplinary research to solve real world problems
• Diversification of research funding sources
• Publication and Patent filing
• Commercialisation and Consultancy
• International collaborations

UTAR R&D Colloquium 2018 (1.0) and (2.0) continued to be held in 2018 to promote regular interactions among the research centres, to establish cross-disciplinary research co-operations and to bid for local and international research funding. This initiative is in line with one of the initiatives/action plans devised under Focus Area 3: Research and Development of the UTAR 10-year Strategic Plan 2013-2022 i.e. strengthening of Cross Disciplinary Research Centres which has resulted in four (4) research project collaborations which applications were submitted for MOHE TRGS 2018 research funding.

Year 2018 saw further enhancements to the following policy and guidelines:

1. Revisions to the UTAR Research Fund (UTARRF) (POL-IPSR-R&D-001) to further strengthen the conditions for its publication output in relation to the award of UTARRF grant to UTAR researchers;
2. Updates to the Guideline on UTAR Strategic Research Fund (UTARSRF) (GD-IPSR-R&D-013) to further strengthen the conditions for its publication output in relation to the award of UTARSRF grant to UTAR researchers; and to tighten the application process with the inclusion of the Submission and Assessment of Concept paper procedures;
3. Guideline on Research Publication Scheme (RPS) (GD-IPSR-R&D-015) revised to encourage PIs to increase their research publications performance to a higher quartile;
4. Financial Support for Journal Paper Publication by Staff Policy (FSJPP) (POL-IPSR-R&D-002) revised to include coverage for over-length page charge arising from the publication of paper exceeding the prescribed page limit of the publishers of Quartile 1 journals. This is to further encourage UTAR academic staff to publish their R&D findings in the Top 30% of Quartile 1 international journals as listed in Clarivate Analytics - Journal Citation Report;
5. Updates to the Guideline Research Scholarship Scheme (RSS) (GD-IPSR-R&D-002) to tighten the terms and conditions for the RSS engagement and extension. The propose revisions of the RSS guidelines will ensure that the RSS holders will submit their thesis/dissertation within the normal duration;
6. Revisions to the UTAR Undergraduate Research Scheme (URS) Guideline (GD-IPSR-R&D-016) and UTAR URS Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) (QP-IPSR-R&D-047) to further strengthen the terms and conditions related to project registration, student application and reporting;
7. UTAR Annual Research Excellence Award Policy (POL-IPSR-R&D-003) updated to have 2 winners from two major disciplines i.e. Science, Engineering, Technology and Medicine and Social Science, Art, Humanity, Management and Accounting.

Research, Development & Commercialisation Process in UTAR

In UTAR, the relevant organisation structure, support and services are shaped and streamlined based on the research, development and commercialisation process chain as depicted in Figure 1.

In UTAR, the entire RDC process chain is handled by the following institute and department:

1. Institute of Postgraduate Studies and Research (IPSR);
2. Department of Consultancy and Commercialisation (DCC).

IPSR consists of two main units:

• Research and Development Unit (RDU);
• Postgraduate Studies Unit (PSU).

R&D management and the facilitation of postgraduate studies are two important aspects in every established research university. With both units managed under IPSR, UTAR hopes to achieve coherence and synergy between the two aspects such that greater and more significant output and impact can be generated. In recent years, IPSR has focused and worked on various facets of the RDC process chain to further enhance the processes and outputs in UTAR.

Figure 1: Process Chain, Input and Output for Research, Development and Commercialisation in UTAR

Research Initiation

• Good quality research ideas can only come from an academic and research community that is highly motivated and has strong healthy research culture and diversity of disciplines and specialisations. Thus far, much effort has been spent for such purposes.
• For the year 2018, thirty two (32) research centres in UTAR continued to implement and carry out their respective activities as well co-operate in comprehensive research projects to improve better utilisation of facilities and resources.
• Frequent discussions, dialogues and workshops among researchers of different research centres, backgrounds and disciplines are held to stimulate more research ideas across discipline/s and relevant to the socio-economic problems faced in the country.

Research Plan

• Guidance and support are constantly provided by IPSR to assist academic staff and researchers of UTAR to transform ideas into feasible research project plans.
  • The MOE Grant applications Evaluation Workshop held in March 2018 resulted in twenty nine (29) FRGS applications amounting RM2,486,933 being approved in the MOE Grants Application Phase 2018.
    

R&D Budget and Funding

• IPSR continues to look out for additional potential external sources of funding for research activities in UTAR. Such information are constantly disseminated to the university community; support and advice are provided so that a good match between the interests of the researchers and the funding agencies can be attained and thus enhancing the success rates of fund biddings.
• The UTAR Research Funding scheme (UTARRF) was established since 2005 with an initial amount of RM1 million allocated per annum. The allocation is intended to serve as seed fund to kick-start implementation of new projects with good potential. This amount was subsequently increased to RM3 million in year 2010. In years 2011 till 2014, the University management further increased the annual allocation for UTARRF to RM5 million, subsequently to RM6.25 million for 2015 RM6 million for 2016 and RM5 million for 2017 and 2018 respectively, to enable additional and larger scale projects to be initiated.

Project Implementation & Monitoring

• IPSR provides the support and services required throughout the research project implementation such as project financial account setup and maintenance, procurement, manpower sourcing, progress monitoring and report, output measurement, etc.
• Close monitoring of project progress and outcome measurement have been one of the main focuses of IPSR. For this, IPSR facilitates to ensure that projects have been carefully planned such that deliverables and outcome are measurable and clearly mapped to major research key performance indicators (KPIs) of individuals, departments, faculties and university.

Research Commercialisation

UTAR strongly believes that further steps should be taken to explore on how the findings and output of the project can be applied in real life. Hence, DCC takes on the task to look into the post-completion phase of research projects in UTAR. DCC continues to work closely with IPSR in year 2018 to further enhance the transition of research projects into commercialisation phase. Among the steps taken are as follows:

• Support, guidance and advice on commercialisation process have been further strengthened to minimise problems and hindrances faced by researchers to commercialise their research output/s;
• Seminars and workshops on various aspects of commercialisation have been conducted for awareness enhancement and information dissemination;
• Constant dialogues, discussions and match-making with external parties such as venture capitalists, commercialisation seed funding agencies, private corporate industries, etc. have been held.

Organisation Chart