PENANG, April 2015 - Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) aims to have 40 percent of more than its 2,000 academicians to be involved in active and consistent collaboration with the industry within the next three years.

The USM Vice-Chancellor Professor Dato’ Dr. Omar Osman said, at present USM has in its record of more than 800 of its academicians and 1,000 non-academic staff involved in close collaboration with various industries and communities.

Omar said, the collaboration is realised via its subsidiary, USAINS Holdings Sdn. Bhd, which encompassed efforts in various aspects, such as on commercialisation, services, consultancy, training and project management among others.”

Such partnerships between universities need to strengthened and be part of the drive to spur research and innovation, at the same time enhancing relationships with the industries, to be more comprehensive and effective.

“USM also hopes that this collaboration would provide more opportunities to the academia in strengthening their roles and simultaneously being able to contribute towards raising the standards of education to benefit the country in the future,” he said.

He said this at the press conference after the launch of the Steinbeis Transfer Centre Network (STCN) to enhance the efforts on the transfer of knowledge and technology from the academia to the industry here recently.

Others who attended the ceremony include the Malaysian Innovation Agency (AIM) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mark Rozario, USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation), Professor Dato’ Dr. Muhamad Jantan dan Executive Director of Steinbeis Malaysia Foundation, Dr. Reezal Abdul Latif.

Omar further said, STCN is a platform which facilitates partnerships between universities and industries, and an initiative that is truly in line with the aims of the university, to enhance smart partnerships with the industries.

He said, STCN provides the landscape for the involvement of 53 experts from USM to provide services to the industries, at the same time providing more comprehensive pathways to encourage the sharing of expertise and knowledge.

“It is hoped that STCN would bridge the gap between the industries and academics and facilitates better collaborations to benefit researches in the future.

“The availability of such a network could also allow us to increase the number of university-industry engagements, not only in consultancy but also in strengthening R&D to produce collaborative researches with the industries,” he said.

Meanwhile, Steinbeis Foundation Malaysia which was launched in August last year, is a non-profit initiative by AIM which prepares industry-based platforms focused on cultivating partnerships between the industries and the academia from market-driven perspectives.

It is based on the approach of the Steinbeis Foundation in Germany, which has proven to be effective in promoting partnerships between academicians and SMIs. There are approximately 50 nations around the world which have utilised and are currently using the Steinbeis model, among those are USA, Japan and South Korea. - Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin/Text: Marziana Mohamed Alias/Photos: Mohd Fairus Md. Isa