KUBANG KERIAN, KELANTAN, 26 January 2014 - Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) will devote all efforts to realise the implementation of the Accelerated Programme for Excellence (APEX) Phase 2 which starts this year.

“Our key focus is to immediately realise the APEX achievements by mobilising all the strength and inferred resources to include all parties and abiding by the principles of sustainability and excellence together in the effort to achieve success while ensuring that the university is always relevant to the demands of the community, the nation and the world,” said the Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Professor Dato’ Dr. Omar Osman while delivering his Annual Message Bersama-sama untuk Kecemerlangan Universiti 2014 (BUKU 2014) to the USM Health Campus community here this morning.

“We expect to be able to realise this excellence with all the strength and expertise that we have without being overly dependent on others to ensure that any products are really a Malaysian product without having to rely on unethical efforts as I am very confident that we have a strong foundation that we have built over the years of USM establishment,” said the Vice-Chancellor.

The focus of USM is to create a sense of belonging and love for the university through the concept of I Love USM and 1USM to enable the USM community to work together to achieve what is expected under the strategy of APEX Phase 2 which emphasises on teamwork, besides initiating Friends of USM (Sahabat USM) programme to mobilise strength for the intended purpose.

“Currently, USM already has over 113,000 alumni who should be mobilised to join hands with others who are planning to become friends of USM, but it depends largely on us all to bring them together to be involved in programmes carried out in this campus and other USM campuses,” said the Vice-Chancellor to about 500 Health Campus personnel.

 

There are at least 7 fundamentals which form the basis of excellence i.e. research enculturation, academic strength, network strength, individual serenity, institutional stability, environmental stability, sustainability culture, Sejahtera culture and strengthen cultural relationship among USM community and also the other stakeholders.

 

“Our achievements have so far been very exciting in many ways but we need to increase the effort to continue realising the APEX Phase 2 programme,” said the Vice-Chancellor.

Omar underlines 7 enablers that will determine the success of APEX Phase 2 namely good governance, developing and empowering talent, nurturing responsible citizens, research and innovation, financial sustainability, positioning and services.

Moreover, the Vice-Chancellor also examined the 7 pillars of APEX that comprise efforts to achieve prominence and be renowned for world-class research and innovation through the establishment of the Centre for Research Initiatives (CRIs), Centre of Excellence, leveraging on more than 46 research-based and service-based research centres as well as developing a global brand, developing talents in fields that we are strong in and ensuring that USM research centres are linked to share strength and expertise with the other centres of excellence worldwide.

The Vice-Chancellor also highlighted the second pillar that focused on APEX Leadership and Nation Building Programme to develop the widest possible talent potentials, including among schoolchildren .

The third pillar is the APEX Partnership that focuses on the university’s sharing of best practices or knowledge with other parties through the Knowledge Transfer Programme which has been successfully carried out over the years.

“People who are knowledgeable are not stingy with his knowledge and are willing to share with others for the benefit of society,” said Omar.

The fourth pillar is focused on efforts to develop and position APEX that will benefit all mankind to the whole world.

“For example, USM has now developed a sustainability assessment methodology that would be used as an index of the quality and sustainability indicators as well as USM developing Global Network Asia Pacific University-Community Engangement Network (APUCEN) , South East Asian Sustainability Network (SEASN), Global Higher Education Network (GHEN) and ASEAN Local Knowledge Network (ALKN) which can help to develop a network of global cooperation and sharing of expertise,” he said.

APEX Phase 2 also laid the cornerstone of the Academic and Student Development as a major effort to produce the future generations who have a global mindset at all levels involving all the university community and provide the lecturers and the students a boost so as they are Eminent and Prominent in the country or even at the world stage .

“I expect that we will be able to produce a large number of graduates who can serve multinational companies of the world on the international stage, managed in implementing the ' APEX Scholar ' with the help of various parties and is able to render them competitive with five key features of global mindset and they are: global knowledge, armed with the ability to adopt and adapt to other culture and environment wherever, sound and strong skills in communication, and are able to manage the complex inter-personal relationships in cross-cultural, diversity and community composition in the world,” Omar said.

The sixth pillar is focused on the development of institutions in order to produce leaders capable of transforming and having transformative ability, pay attention to the needs of women and families, show soft governance, implementing new policies such as the use of sustainable energy, setting up offices and asset management property as well as a maintaining a policy of lean management.

“The University will provide broader empowerment of the various parties to mobilize university either in the form of power, autonomy, authority, skills, resources, decision-making process using the guidelines and where necessary develop new,” added the Vice-Chancellor.

The seventh pillar is to ensure the successful achievement of APEX Phase 2 Financial Sustainability requiring earnest creative and innovative efforts, to explore and create new business opportunities and strengthen its efforts in risk management.

“I applaud the efforts of the Health Campus, but at the same time, we hope to jointly perform a specific transformation here as there is a strategic necessity, to implement the strategic plan the campus, improve the existing infrastructure and facilities, and to establish public and private medical specialist centers,” he said at the end of the message .

Also present were Director of the USM Health Campus , Professor Dato’ Dr . Mafauzy Mohamed; Director General of Malaysia Productivity Corporation (MPC), Dato’ Mohd Razali Hussain; Director General STANDARD Malaysia, Fadilah Darman; Managing Director of SIRIM QAS International, Khalidah Mustafa; General Manager of Intertek Moody International, Dr . Ooi Cheng Lee; and USM key officers. - Text : Mohamad Abdullah/Translation: Yong Check Yoon