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.
UTARRF was established in 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 projects with good potential. This amount was subsequently increased to RM3 million in year 2010.
The University management further increased the annual allocation for UTARRF to RM5 million for each year of 2011 till 2014, RM6.25 million for 2015 and subsequently to RM6.39 million for 2020. It enables additional and larger scale projects to be initiated as well as boost research & development activities geared towards realizing the goal to transform UTAR into a research intensive university.
As of 31 December 2020, the accumulated UTARRF amount awarded is RM68.9 million (Figure 1).
Figure 1: UTAR Research Fund total cumulative allocation per year in Ringgit Malaysia (RM)
The University, guided by stringent and careful grant approval procedures, had initially approved a funding amount of RM516,500 in 2006. The amount continued to register growth in the years following with a total of RM6.49 million awarded in 2020.
As of 31 December 2019, the accumulated UTARRF amount awarded is RM62.5 million (Figure 2).
From the RM6.39 million that was approved in 2020, a total of RM170,260.00 was awarded to one (1) UTARSRF programme and RM3.36 million was awarded for 112 research projects in UTARRF Cycle 1 and 2/2020. The breakdown of the awarded UTARRF projects by Faculties/Institute is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Number of UTARRF projects awarded to Faculties in year 2020
A special allocation was also set aside for academics’ and students’ research related activities. A total of RM2,950,081.32 funding was approved for the purpose. These activities include the following: