Raih, Mohd Firdaus

Universiti Putra Malaysia Institutional Repository

~I NEW STRAITS TIMESHIGHER ED WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2018PERSPECTIVEMalaysian Research Universities~theway forwardS we enter 2018 and ponder the tu-ure, it is perhaps worth reflecting onne miLestone in MilLaysian higherducation that may have gone ratherunnoticed.The past year, 2017, marked a decade bf the'MaLaysian Research Universities (MRU) pro-gramme. Despite formalisation Of such a sta-tus 'for five -MaLaysian universities' as recentlyas onLy 10 years ago, the research university isnot a new concept. The five universities underthe MRU umbrella are University of MaLaya, Uni-versiti Sains MaLaysia, Universiti Putra MaLaysia,Universiti Kebangsaan MaLaysia and UniversitiTeknoLogi MaLaysia. .As the name suggests, a research univer-. sity is one with its academic staff continuousLyengaged in research. This concept is centraL to- the operations of such universities and shouLd intheory, pervade through to every LeveLof opera-tions. For exampLe, even undergraduate teach-ing in a research university wiLL have researcheLements incorporated where students wiLL beexposed to not just materials from textbooks,but aLso the Latest research findings by a facultymember teaching a particular course. Funding isaLso intensiveLy soLicited and routed for researchpurposes.Some of the earliest documented ethos of themodern research university can be traced backto the works of the 19th century phiLosopherWil-helm von HumboLdt. He offered three guidingprincipLes: .the university exists for the sake ofknowLedge; academic freedom of the universitymust be guarded from external influences; andthe nature of schoLarly enquiry [research) is inex-haustibLe. Von HumboLdt aLso wrote of a deLicatebalance that needed to be maintained betweenthe state and the university.in order for the first two principLes to be up-heLd, the university needed to be guaranteed bythe state. OnLy governments wouLd have the ca-pacity, and shouLd have the wiLL,to guarantee theendless pursuit of knowledge. .However, in order for the state to gain anyusefuL knowLedge from the university, it needed'to Leave the schoLars alone. The uLtimate aim, ac-cording to HumboLdt, is that the university shouLd. be of use 'to the state and the broader pubLic, butnever immediateLy so. The schoLarLy pursuit ofknowledge required time and space that mayone day be of use beyond theuniversity.The history of formaL tertiary education inMalaysia can be traced back to the University ofMalaya's origins as the King Edward Vii Collegeof Medicine. if research universities are not anew concept, why have our universities not beenresearch universities aLLthis whiLe? it is not thatMaLaysian universities have not been invoLved inresearch. in fact, many universities without sucha LabeLdo carry ou't research. The difference isperhaps the cuLture when it comes to carryingout research. The MRU programme was intend-ed to provide a boost that couLd better inculcatesuch a cuLture in the universities under it. .This research cuLture concept may be atiento many outside of academia. in practice, what itmeans for academic staff is that their job scope iscentred on conducting research. This conventionis aLso extended to the .students and other staff.The university, in this regard, lives and breathesresearch. But what does it mean to do so? in myopinion, this research cuLture needs.to be distin-As weenter theyears of theFourth IndustrialRevolution, is usingwhat are essentially20th centurq-basedmethods of qualityassessment theright direction toprogress?SitiMunira "Abdul Razah (right) and Mafuza Samsudin at work in the LaboratoriPerkhidmatan Halal, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang. .guished from pureLy quantitative means of per-formance measurement.SeveraL mentors i have had the priviLege ofknowing perhaps embody the spirit of Living andbreathing research. in a way, to do so means tolalrnostl never switch off -:- one's research isaLways in mind. This drive is borne out of acu-riosity to expLore and discover knowLedge, notbecause of the need to satisfy job performancerequirements ..in this way, the research becomes a wayof life, but not a burden or source of distress.i found it amusing that, of the mentors i men-tioned, all seemed to state directly or impLy thatthey are not really empLoyed to work, but arepaid to pursue a passion [a few even used theword hobby].Have the MRUs been abLe to incuLcate thisculture of Living and breathing research? OnewouLd have to be. embedded in, making quaLita-tive fly-on-the-wall type observations in order toperhaps most accurateLy gauge and conclude'.such an outcome. We reLy on numbers [andrankingsl to measure such progress or success.UnfortunateLy, perhaps we reLy on such num-bers too much. i agree there is nothing wrongwith Looking at the data, except when we rely-solely on such quantitative methodoLogies.However, if we were indeed to rely soLeLyon'numbers, then the MRU programme has beena success. Statistics for academic publicationsby MRUs spiked and have remained on a steadyincrement. in a five-year period from 2003-2007,the number of papers published per year in-creased from 1,310 papers'in 2003 to 3,160 pa-pers in 2007[a difference of 1,850!.The next five-year period after the MRU pro- •gramme was initiated saw an increase from5,036 papers recorded in 2008 to 13,695 papers'published in 2012 [a difference of 8,659 papers],ALthough, pubLications are not the onLy way tomeasure such progress, it is perhaps the sirn-.pLest way because pubLishing research findingsremains a core business of the research enter-prise.One might question the impact these writ-ings have for the nation. After aLL,the most vis-ible and tangibLe products of universities theworLd over are undoubtedLy their graduates,not papers. A potential student and parent wiLLmore LikeLy ask what job prospects await anaLumni of a particuLar university rather thanask how many academic research articlesthe university has published. Several differentmetrics have been used in attempts to quan-tify the impact of collective knowLedge such aspublished research articles.However, i don't beLieve they quite truly re-flect how the knowLedge is applied in reality. Themeasures in pLace mainLy use different methodsto quantify' the number of times a paper is men-tioned by other papers '.Such methods clearLy do· not reveaL what reaL-worLd appLications the re-search outcomes were. This is .perhaps whereuniversities must change. They shouLd strivefor certain ideaLs but refrain from being ideal-istic and aLoof. i believe publications are neces-sary for the sake of compiLing and document-ing knowledge. Publications are important andshouLd remain a means of assessing researchoutcomes. However, mereLy quantifying thenumber of papers and the times they are citedis surely not the way forward. This practice mustbe revised. Perhaps a more pragmatic approachcan better deaL with the rapidLy changing envi-ronment that universities now operate in.The MRUs can be an ideaL pLatform to leadthe way. As our universities mature, the timehas come to become Less independent if not yetto totaLLy break away from what are essentiaLlyWestern tooLs of assessments. Many of thesetooLs have aLso been acknowLedged by Westernacademics to be flawed. These tooLs were in away designed to be more advantageous to seLectinstitutions. But yet they continue to be used andwe continue to make decisions based on theirresuLts.Until more recently, universities were ex-pected to serve its constituents - the state or .stakehoLders and its citizens. They do so by be-· ing an institutionaL source of knowLedge that arecollected and disseminated. UnfortunateLy, uni-versities the worLd over are now more subservi-ent to box-ticking and fiLLing in numbers to "play"the rankings tabLes. As we enter the years of the· Fourth industriaL RevoLution - an era of big dataand artificiaL intelligence - is using what are es-sentiaLLy 20th century-based methods of qualityassessment the right direction to progress?The MRU programme has brought an aware-ness of research cuLture into MaLaysian univer-sities and research institutions. in many ways,the Higher Education Ministry 'can count theMRU programme as a feather in its cap - a suc-cess in pushing the boundaries of our capacity tobe more gLobally competitive. We are not thereyet. But progress has- been made. Perhaps theplatform can aLso be the catalyst to pioneer arevoLution in the assessment of higher educa-tion quaLity. Nothing is stopping us from lead-ing in this direction instead of mereLy followinga crowd driven by conflict of interest and ques-tionable intent.The writer is a bioinformatician andmolecular bioLogist with the Faculty ofScience and Technology and a SeniorResearch Fellow at the Institute of SystemsBiology, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.EmaiL him at firdaus0mfrlab.org

Malaysian research universities, the way forward

http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/64157/1/Malaysian%20Research%20Universities%2C%20the%20way%20foward.pdf

Malaysian research universities, the way forward

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