Message from the Director
Greetings from Sibu and welcome to UTS Centre for Research and Development (CRD) website! UTS is now almost ten years old and our achievements continue to grow by leaps and bounds. We have been officially awarded with MyRA One Star in 2019 and continue to pursue towards improving to a Two Star rating. The struggle to inculcate research and publication culture among the academic staff has paid off as reflected by CRD’s current progress and achievement. It has not been an easy task for CRD team, as the university has initially focused more on teaching and learning rather than research. However with full commitment from the team and support by UTS researchers, we manage to soar up. We have expanded from merely offering Applied and Fundamental grants to Social Responsibility, Prototype and the latest Book grants. We have also expanded our research to other categories with external institutions, such as Matching grant, Joint Research Project, and Collaborative Research grant. We have participated in local and national research and innovation exhibitions and have started to secure external grants. We have digitalised the management of internal research grant by setting up the UTS Research Cloud Management System (URCMS).
The changes were strategically tuned to optimise UTS participation in MyRA, as well as meeting one of the Strategic Thrusts of the university, Thrust 6 – Research Development and Innovation. Objectives of Thrust 6 include to produce high number of academic staff doing research, increase in the quantity and quality of publication and innovation products, improve MyRA points and increase the number of commercialised products.
CRD started its operation in 2014 with only 19 internal grants. The total cumulative number of grants have currently increased to 318, with 113 active grants, as of December 2022. We have secured 45 external grants from various funders, such as, Yayasan Sarawak, Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation Bhd. (SDEC), Malaysian Technology Development Corporation (MTDC), Malaysia Automotive, Robotics & IOT Institute (MARii), Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS), Sarawak Research Development Council (SRDC), Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry & Performing Arts Sarawak and etc. We also managed to collaborate with international universities, such as the Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER) with Stockholm University, Membership Research Grant Scheme (MeRSA) with the University of Hong Kong and the Wellcome Trust Ltd. We have also secured six Matching Grants with Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP), two collaborative grants with Universitas Tanjungpura (UNTAN), Kalimantan Barat, one Matching grant with UNISBA, Indonesia and Swinburne Kuching respectively. UTS has also applied six Intellectual Patent rights and one Industrial Design right for products, which are outcomes from the various grants.
Besides internal grant, six Research Centres are also set up to promote UTS niche. These are Advanced Centre for Sustainable Socio-economic and Technological Development (ASSET); Borneo Regionalism and Conservation (BORC); Centre of Excellence in Wood Engineered Products (CeWEP); Centre on Technological Readiness and Innovation in Business Technopreneurship (CONTRIBUTE); Centre for Research of Innovation and Sustainable Development (CRISD); and Design and Technology Centre (DeTeC).
CRD aims are to promote UTS to be globally competitive through the creation, development and making of practical use of new scientific discoveries. UTS strives in the capacity to innovate and has invested in knowledge of competence. Innovation is not just about competitiveness and economic growth only, it should take into account current challenges and issues affecting the societies today, for example on climate change, inclusive societies, energy, food security, health and etc. In short, innovation should be relevant to the grassroots. As a university, UTS constitutes an essential first part of the innovation value chain but need to have closer links to business and the public sector in order to find practical applications for new scientific discoveries and to transfer knowledge and at the same time need to look at students as potentials central carriers of new ideas and knowledge.
As part of UTS initiatives to unleash endless possibilities, continuous efforts will be done for staff development, as well as utilizing existing talent for research, publication and innovation, enhancing staff development, promoting good governance and a conducive working place that will improve performance, promote excellent habit and reduce risks.
Associate Professor Dr Mohd Zahid Abidin
Director, Centre for Research & Development