SINTOK, KEDAH, 7 June 2016 – The Regional Council of the Asia-Pacific University-Community Engagement Network (APUCEN) is very keen to encourage Community-Based Research where the community will work hand-in-hand with the university to solve problems of our time.

The partnership between the community and university will shed new lights in solving today’s challenges through innovative directions.

These statements were made by the President of APUCEN, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Professor Dato’ Dr. Omar Osman, at the 8^th Regional APUCEN Council meeting at Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) held here recently.

“APUCEN will focus more on Community-Based Research to encourage the involvement of more staff and academics in community engagement.

“APUCEN will move towards offering Socially-engaged Scholarship for Executive and Socially-engaged Scholarship training workshop for its members, which is closely link to Community-Based Research,” said Omar who chaired the meeting which was attended by 8 of its 13 Council Members.

The other important matter raised was APUCEN’s direction to establish APUCEN Student Chapter to be more inclusive and holistic in community engagement while encouraging community learning and service learning.

Omar added, “I am very much encouraged by all member institutions that are supportive in establishing APUCEN Student Chapter and this will take off by this year.”

The Meeting was attended by representatives from USM, Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM), Thammasat University, Seri Begawan Religious Teachers’ College (KUPUSB), Kyoto University of Foreign Studies (KUFS) and Australian College of Applied Psychology (ACAP).

“In merely 5 months (January to May 2016), APUCEN has been moving actively and had conducted a total of ten Community Engagement projects both nationally and internationally with its members, which include projects in Nepal, Philippines and Cambodia.”

Omar expressed his sincere thanks and congratulations to all the institutions and members involved in all these projects, either by leading the projects or by partnering the projects.

“This is the spirit of APUCEN on moving forward together through partnerships,” he said.

APUCEN, which is 5 years old since it has been launched in 2011, has now grown with 83 members from 19 countries, expanding beyond the Asia-Pacific region, with South Africa being our latest country member.

APUCEN is making efforts to encourage more corporate sectors to be members, aiming to work together to conduct Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Currently APUCEN has two members from the corporate sector, namely TORAY Industries (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and MyWave Sdn Bhd.

Omar added, on behalf of APUCEN, he would like to record his sincerest thanks to Universiti Utara Malaysia for hosting the meeting and demonstrating its CE project “Junior Golf Programme” as well as giving the Council Members a campus tour in UUM in conjunction with its “Discover UUM 2016”.

Text & Photos: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Aileen Tan Shau Hwai