PENANG, 4 Feb.2013 - Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) is planning to set up a centre of cooperation with the world's leading research institution, RIKEN Institute of Japan to strengthen the development of high impact multidisciplinary research. 

USM Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Dato’ Omar Osman said that the centre's multidisciplinary collaboration involving efforts to strengthen research collaboration with RIKEN has been going on since the signing of a memorandum of agreement (MoA) last year. 

Omar said that the research areas that are being developed jointly by the two parties include studies of muons, immunology, biomass and bioprobe.

 “USM is looking at a number of other research areas that have impact and high output to the development of knowledge, especially in the world of science,” he said at a press conference after the closing ceremony of the USM-RIKEN Symposium here today.

He added that the university is prepared to realise the intention of creating the collaboration centre and is undergoing an intensive discussion with the RIKEN counterpart to accelerate the process of establishing such a centre.  

“The collaboration between RIKEN and USM started 20 years ago and USM is committed to further strengthen relations with RIKEN, especially when we looked at a variety of potential research that could be explored together that led to the signing of the MoA,” he said.

 

Commenting on the symposium, he said that it is an important platform for both parties to discuss about collaboration programmes in the development of research in the areas identified.

 He said the 15 presentations were made of which seven of them were presented by academics from RIKEN pertaining to topics on materials engineering, biotechnology, biomass industry and so forth.

 Moreover, he said, several other efforts were in progress under the bilateral cooperation, focusing on discussions to strengthen research in the field of management, USM-RIKEN staff exchange programmes and others. - Text: Marziana Mohamed Alias / Photo: Mohd. Fairus Md. Isa / Translation: Yong Check Yoon