KYOTO, JAPAN, 27 September 2017 - The closing ceremony of the 5th University-Community Engagement Conference (UCEC 2017) was held at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies (KUFS) in Kyoto, Japan recently to mark the end of a memorable 3-day conference.

The Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Vice-Chancellor, Professor Datuk Dr. Asma Ismail was on hand to officiate the ceremony.

The closing review was read by Professor Craig Smith, the founding Chair of the Department of Global Affairs at KUFS, and followed by a summation from the Executive Director of APUCEN, Professor Dato' Dr. Aileen Tan Shau Hwai from USM.

Smith mentioned in the closing review that the 'engaged research" approach that USM practises on community engagement is impressive and practical. Engaged research allows us to move out of the laboratories and classrooms and into the community surrounding.

"What I have learned from USM, is that depending on our students alone to move the spirit of community engagement isn't quite enough. We have to involve the university as a whole into community engagement, so that we ourselves could go off-campus and do something.

“The keys to community engagement that I have understood from USM are sincere goodwill, that it should not be forced and it should be beneficial to all stakeholders," said Smith.

Aileen meanwhile re-iterated that the parallel sessions during the conference were all amazing and is a reflection of diversity in the approaches towards community engagement and empowerment of communities.

"There are so many opportunities for knowledge-sharing and scope for working together. The projects shared during these sessions are not so much on what the researchers want, but based on the needs of the community. This is a proof that we, the academicians, have observed and listened before the projects are conducted," said Aileen.

The closing remarks stated by Asma has left the participants of UCEC 2017 with an in-depth understanding of the conference and the path forward that is being carved.

"It doesn't matter exactly from which background we come from, we are all human beings and we all want to do something nice to somebody, at least at some point in our life, and this is one opportunity given to us to do this," she said.

Asma also mentioned that when the policy in Malaysia is changed towards experiential learning, which is now part and parcel when the redesigning of the curriculum for higher education took place, there were not much problems coming from the students.

“Many of them were doing volunteerism and found that it makes them become more mature individuals when they go for job interviews, as they are talking from experience, rather than depending only on the theoretical aspects. The end game here is to be involved in research on innovations towards helping the bottom billions.

“The aim and way forward of the conference is to transform the students to embrace community engagement and at the same time bringing in the NGOs and industries into the game to complete the Quadruple Helix model,” added Asma.

“Bringing in these components of the model to work along will result in fewer frustrations in obtaining funding, at the same time widening the scope from depending only on government funding,” she said.

There was also a video shared by the host of the next UCEC in 2019. The honour went to Seri Begawan Religious’ Teachers University College (KUPU SP) from Brunei Darussalam.

The video content presents the richness of nature and the beautiful country where KUPU SP is located. There was also a short message from KUPU SP in welcoming all those who were present to Brunei Darussalam for the next UCEC in 2019.