PENANG, 6 August 2015 – Malaysians are on the whole not very receptive and reluctant to use local innovations produced by the nations’ researchers.

Deputy Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) Datuk Dr. Abu Bakar Mohamad Diah said that despite advancements in research culture among local researchers, local consumers are still reluctant to give new local innovations a chance.

“This is one of the major challenges in local commercialisation requiring a holistic solution in order to achieve the nation’s aspirations to increase the number of commercialised products developed by local innovators by the year 2020. Local consumers have an important role to play to ensure that local innovations are a success and accepted on the market,” he stated.

A proposal will be put forth to MOSTI to spearhead efforts to commercialise local innovations by initiating start-up companies, building factories and marketing the products which can then be taken over by interested parties once the products have been successfully established.

“This is one of the measures that we can take to boost commercialisation of local innovations and I shall attempt to convince MOSTI to seriously consider this suggestion,” he added.

His remarks were made during a press conference held before the launching of the 5^th International Conference on Recent Advances in Materials, Minerals and Environment (RAMM) and the 2^nd International Postgraduate Conference on Materials, Minerals and Polymers (MAMIP) at a hotel here, last night.

Organised by the School of Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering USM, RAMM is a forum for discussion on latest innovations, issues, future challenges and sustainable solutions among researchers, engineers and academics in the area of materials, polymers and minerals/ environment.

More than 250 papers were presented by participants from various countries including Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Qatar, Australia and Japan on the theme ‘Creating a Sustainable World through Advancement in Materials, Minerals & Environment Research’.

Abu Bakar revealed that under the 10^th Malaysia Plan, MOSTI had allocated RM924 million for research projects out of which only 63 products were successfully commercialised.

“I would like to urge researchers to focus their research on products with the potential to be commercialised,” he stated.

“At the same time we appreciate the important role and responsibility of researchers in other aspects including to improve the quality of publications, develop human capital and contribute to knowledge on the whole,” he noted.

Abu Bakar also praised the nation’s researchers who have developed various novel researches and expressed his hope that efforts at commercialisation could be improved in due time.

Translation: Dr Nurul Farhana Low Abdullah/Text: Marziana Mohamed Alias/Photo: Zamani Abdul Rahim