ISTANBUL, TÜRKIYE, 9 April 2025 – The Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Professor Dato' Seri Ir. Dr. Abdul Rahman Mohamed attended the 1^st Turkish-Malaysian Inter-University Forum, as part of the Malaysian Higher Education delegation.

The Forum, co-chaired by the Minister of Higher Education of Malaysia, Dato’ Seri Diraja Dr. Zambry Abd Kadir and Deputy President of the Council for Higher Education of the Republic of Türkiye, Professor Dr. H. Haldun Goktas, was attended by representatives from universities in Malaysia and Türkiye.

Representatives from Malaysian universities included those from USM, UTM, UniMAS, UUM, UMP, UTP and Sunway University.

From Türkiye, the university representatives were from Istanbul Technical University, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa, Ankara University, and Middle East Technical University.

During the Forum, every university representative had the opportunity to present information regarding their institution and the potentials for collaboration.

The USM Vice-Chancellor extended the invitation to the various Turkish university authorities to send their students to USM for short-term exchange and mobility programmes.

In relation to research, Abdul Rahman forwarded the suggestion for the Turkish universities to tap on the strength of USM in the field of semiconductor and sustainability.

Other potential fields of research to be explored with Malaysian universities would be in AI (UTM), sustainability (UniMAS) and petrochemical (UTP).

Zambry also extended his invitation to all Turkish universities to attend the Festival of Ideas, to be organised by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) later this year.

The Festival would serve as a flagship initiative to foster intellectual discourse, celebrate innovation, and position Malaysia as a global hub for knowledge and creativity.

In addition to that, Zambry also hoped that individual universities from Malaysia can offer a specified amount of funding to immediately kick-off the collaboration with the Turkish universities, for instance in the co-funding of a research project.

This would further deepen the Malaysia-Türkiye collaboration in higher education.

Text: Professor Dr. Lee Keat Teong/Editing: Media & Public Relations Centre, USM