PUTRAJAYA, 5 November 2019 – Four scientists from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) proved their research’s worth when they were chosen as recipients of the prestigious Malaysia's Research Star Award (MRSA) at a ceremony held here recently.

The four, whom were acknowledged as Highly Cited Researcher 2018, were Professor Datuk Dr. Abdul Khalil H.P. Shawkataly (Director, Centre for Business Development) in the Elsevier/Scopus (International Research Collaboration) category while three other awards under Clarivate Analytics, were presented to Professor Dato' Ir. Dr. Abdul Rahman Mohamed (Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Innovation), Professor Dr. Abd Karim Alias (Director, Centre for Development of Academic Excellence) and Professor Ir. Dr. Abdul Latif Ahmad (Director, Nexus Engineering).

Aside from MRSA, five journal publications from USM were also selected as recipients of the ‘Creme’ recognition, as they continue their respective achievements since the award was introduced.
 
The winning journals were the Bulletin of the Malaysian Mathematical Sciences Society in the Web of Science category, and in the Scopus category, those that scored highly were the Malaysian Journal of Medical Sciences, the International Journal of Asia-Pacific Studies, the Asian Academy of Management Journal of Accounting and Finance and the Asian Academy of Management Journal.

Those present to receive the awards were the Chief Editors of the journals including Professor Dato' Dr. Rosihan M. Ali, Professor Dato' Dr. Jafri Malin Abdullah, Professor Dato' Ruhani Ali, Associate Professor Dr. Zamri Ahmad and Dr. Grace V.S. Chin (representative).

Secretary-General of Ministry of Education Malaysia (KPM), Dato’ Mohd Ghazali Abas was at the ceremony on behalf of the Minister of Education to present the awards to the winners. Also present was the Director-General of Department of Higher Education (JPT) KPM, Datin Paduka Ir. Dr. Siti Hamisah Tapsir.

The MRSA awards serve as an acknowledgement and recognition of the success of local researchers in producing their research outcomes and the quality of their scholarly writings which have been successfully published and indexed in reputable international databases.

Additionally, the recognition of CREME Status being awarded to journals is meant to be as an incentive to encourage the writing and publication of local research findings in journals of reputable, influential and prominent global standing.

It is also a way in awarding the Publication Incentive Scheme to the local journals in publishing outcomes of current research activities, which is aimed at enhancing the local journals to facilitate the process of being indexed in international journal databases such as WoS or Scopus, aside from ensuring that the indexed journals remain in those databases while raising the citation impact.

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin