RM100mil for varsities
PENANG: The four local universities designated as research universities will receive at least an additional RM100mil each for research, development and commercialisation activities.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said the allocation, to be disbursed early next year, would also fund the universities’ research grants and postgraduate scholarships.
The four universities are Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Putra Malaysia.

提升水平争取世界排名 4大学列为研究大学
(槟城讯)高等教育部长拿督斯里慕斯达法宣布，教育部已把4所大学列为研究大学，以提升学术的水平，目标是争取名列世界100之内的最佳大学。
他坦言，大学学术水平尚未臻世界级的标准，迫切需要提升，而把4所大学，即马来西亚理科大学、马来亚大学、国大及博大，列为研究大学地位，有助达到目标。
他说，这所大学必须符合政府所列下8项学术准则，注重学术研究，以迎合世界大学的学术水平。此外，还须设有研究及开发部门，以配合社会发展的需求，参与经济的发展。

I have 2 cents to share about the four universities had been designated as research universities under the 9th Malaysia Plan. I have pursued my Master of Science degree at one of local public universities before. These suggestions already proposed to the University administration several years ago while I still in university for my MSc. However, when I left the university 4 years later the situation still not much improve. Perhaps, the theory “I just play for 10 minutes only” is applying well. If they are serious to develop universities to become research universities, perhaps they should consider about these.

1.The electrical supply

I dare to tell most laboratories in the universities do not have back up electrical supply. Why it so important?

Take my former laboratory as example. We have several unit of ultra low temperature freezers (-80ºC and -20ºC), several unit of thermal cycler, fridges, ultra high speed (up to 100,000 rpm) centrifuge, several unit of high speed (up to 13,000 rpm) centrifuges and so on.

The ultra low temperature freezers were use to store and kept research materials because some materials can’t simply harvest from outside or they were harvested from somewhere far away. Besides, the freezers also use to store previous students’ works like clones they have generated. These clones can be used by next student who wants to carry out further research on it. Some enzymes and kits we use are temperature sensitive. They need to store or kept in low temperature. These enzymes and kits are very expensive. Sometimes a tube of enzyme (500µL) will cost RM6000, more expensive than a brand new 110cc motorcycle. I’m not kidding here.

My former laboratory has diesel electric generator connected to 4 power plugs only. However, the generator does not well maintain all the time. We have experienced one serious power failure start from 07 May 2003 to 08 May 2003. Previous students’ research clones and research materials inside the -80ºC freezers were seriously affected. Enzymes and kits inside one of the -20ºC freezers were destroyed during those 2 days of power failure. We estimated the lost for enzymes and kits inside that freezer were RM 30,000*. Just one -20ºC freezer only we already lost RM 30,000* not yet count the time and effort students have spent to carry out their work. The power failure problem always happened in my former university. Although the electrical supply resume back after several hours, however, what about the time and effort students have carried out on their research or experiments?

Take the PCR experiments as an example here. During power failure, the enzymes in the reaction mix were destroyed because it only works under certain temperature in certain period. So, the student has to repeat the experiment effort with new enzymes, primers, solutions, and templates. What about a student spinning his/her samples in a high speed or ultra high speed centrifuge and suddenly no electrical supply? Yes, he/she has to repeat again the extraction work. Some extraction methods only function well at chilling temperature. When the power failure happened the temperature will rise too. So, you know the answer.

Does it consider a waste to the research grant because of this electrical supply problem? Research grant was wasted on this kind of problem. You can imagine now why some researchers can’t present or get more results on their research at the end of his/her studies. Back up electrical supply is important to all laboratories in all universities. The University administration always said the generator is very expensive, but, just look at the examples above (from laboratory only) how much the research grant (tax payers’ money) was wasted? Mind you, researchers do not simply get extra research grant paid by reporting this electrical problem to MOSTI.

Toward to research universities, back up electrical supply is a must for long run.

* The amount of price was based on the goods price in the year 2003. The current price now is much higher than year 2003. For an example, a sequencing kit, DYEnamic™ ET Dye Terminator Kit (MegaBACE™) was about RM 30,000 plus in the year 2003. However, same sequencing kit is RM 50,000 plus in the year 2005. This kit must store or kept in -20ºC freezer!

TechTags Plugin [ Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed | Universiti Sains Malaysia | Universiti Malaya | Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia | Universiti Putra Malaysia | USM | UM | UKM | UPM | 马来西亚理科大学 | 马来亚大学 | 国大 | 博大 ]

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