LAST year, Malaysian public universities fell in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings with only Universiti Malaya making it to the top 200. The decline continues in this year’s Times Higher Education Asia University rankings, as no local tertiary institution made it to the top 100.
QS research head Ben Sowter says last year that Malaysian universities’ rankings plunged due to deficiencies in research and that it reflects the intensity of global competition.
“Malaysian institutions are not yet producing highly cited research, but they have developed a solid profile among the world’s academics and graduate employers,” Sowter adds.
For Times Higher Education, the rankings are measured with several performance indicators under categories such as research volume, income and reputation (30 per cent); citations to indicate research influence (30 per cent); teaching which looks at the learning environment (30 per cent); international outlook of the people and research (7.5 per cent); and industry income through innovation (2.5 per cent).
Research journals are also evaluated based on their impact factor – a yardstick formulated by Thomson Reuters which reflects the average number of citations received per paper published in a particular journal in two preceding years.
The significance of research is also underlined in QS World University Rankings which is published annually. The four key pillars to be evaluated are research, teaching, employability and internationalisation. The system also has six indicators to make up the methodology and one of them — citations per faculty — has 20 per cent weightage.
These rankings are important to measure a country’s performance in fundamental research and development, says Dr Azran Azhim Noor Azmi, senior lecturer at Malaysia-Japan International Institute of Technology (MJIIT), a unit of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
“We need to realise that this is where we are now,” he says.
He says motivation to work harder is almost absent amongst those who work in this field, adding that “we not only lack financial and moral support but also supportive government policies”.
Malaysian Academy of Sciences (ASM) secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Salleh Mohd Nor says Malaysia performs well in commodity and applied research namely rubber, forestry and palm oil but is behind in terms of fundamental research.
“Not only is there a lack of funding and investments into fundamental research, there is no committed policy that I know of to support it.
“If you look at South Korea, the United States and Scandinavian countries, they spend at least 4 per cent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on R&D.”
In 2011, Malaysia’s share of gross expenditure on R&D to GDP was only 1.1 per cent compared with Singapore’s 2.3 per cent.
Salleh who is also Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) Pro-chancellor says the country cannot expect good R&D output if there is financial hindrance, which is currently the crux of the issue.
ASM chief executive officer Dr Ahmad Ibrahim says much of the RM2 billion allocation for R&D in the 10th Malaysia Plan ended up in higher learning institutions but researches (especially applied research) do not translate into commercialisation.
Earlier this year, he says, there were rumours that the R&D allocations would be reduced by half and later, a quarter, which, Ahmad surmises, would cause the derailment of long-term research plans and would affect post-doctorates as well as research assistantships.
“Once these talents leave for greener pastures elsewhere, the country’s pool of human capital in research dwindles.”
The human resource problem — whereby there is a shortage of highly qualified people in the field especially good researchers and lecturers — exists partly due to insufficient wages which then causes talents to leave for better opportunities elsewhere.
Scientific Malaysian (SciMy), a non-profit initiative to connect Malaysian scientific researchers across the world to discuss research issues in Malaysia, is of the opinion that while salary is not the sole reason for brain drain, it is one of the important factors in retaining talent.
“Given that research here is already not as good as in other countries within the region, the lower salary scale is another driving factor for brain drain. The scientific research community thrives on talent — in fact, many passionate scientists would be willing to work with renowned scientists even if the salary is not particularly attractive.
“The problem we are facing now is that we have minimal talent and we have minimal salary. At least one of these has to improve in order to improve the research environment in Malaysia,” SciMy founder Andrew Chan told the New Sunday Times.
MJIIT’s Azran shares the sentiment and believes those who work in the research field in the country are not earning competitive salaries.
“I spent 10 years studying in Japan and another five years working as an assistant professor there. I earned about RM20,000 monthly but here I am making less than RM10,000 a month.”
Yet, he is hopeful for the year 2020 when the country is supposed to increase its GDP which will then see an increase in wages for researchers.
In 1980, scientists Peter B. Vose and Admar Cervellini wrote an article titled “Problems of scientific research in developing countries” in which they suggested that governments spend great sums of money for their nationals to pursue higher education overseas but fail to provide them with adequately paid employment or facilities when they return.
Azran still finds it hard to utilise the expertise and knowledge he gained when he was in Japan as he finds it difficult to adapt to the working environment here.
He reasons that as a developing country “we still rely on foreign technologies too much because we buy more than we sell, which means our R&D field has not matured yet”.
Another relevant issue is that many researches are not translated into commercial gains or tangible benefits to society.
SciMy says while fundamental or basic research does not necessarily translate into a product or treatment, all innovation rely on prior knowledge in the field and, therefore, are indirectly a product of fundamental research.
“Therefore, there should be a balance between doing research in fundamental sciences and applied sciences — but regardless of the type of research, the focus should be on the quality rather than the quantity of the output.”
SciMy believes that scientists in Malaysia should be encouraged and trained to publish high impact research papers and be at the forefront of scientific research — instead of merely being a “factory” producing low quality research or be completely occupied with teaching responsibilities.
“Other countries (such as Singapore) are getting way ahead of Malaysia, which means we will have to step up soon or there’ll be a lot of catching up to be done”.