HIGH-INCOME status for Malaysia by 2017? That’s the optimistic forecast of the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. Andrew Wyckoff, OECD’s director for Science, Technology and Innovation (STI), presented his organisation’s review of Malaysia’s Innovation Policy at the recent 5th annual meeting of Malaysia’s unique “kitchen cabinet” of national and international sustainable development advisers: the Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council (GSIAC).
Chaired by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, renowned national and international figures from business, science and academia comprise GSIAC (gsiac.org) with a mandate of helping our country identify and pursue sustainable means for achieving high-income status by 2020.
Strong economic headwinds are blowing these days, of course, and time will tell if we make it to our goal this decade. But, if the past 10-year trend continues, Wyckoff told fellow council members, including 5 per cent average annual growth in Gross National Income per capita, the OECD expects Malaysia to achieve its high-income ambition in just two to three years, graduating from upper middle-income country status well ahead of our 2020 target date. In a presentation entitled “Malaysia: A great Asian success story about to achieve its very ambitious long-term goal”, Wyckoff prescribed four key areas of focus for Malaysia to successfully meet “the innovation imperative”.
First, we need to strengthen innovation in the business sector. This includes raising innovation capabilities within firms — small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in particular — while streamlining the system of public support and increasing its accessibility and transparency. Other recommendations include setting up regional innovation centres to provide SMEs easy access to critical resources and acting as an interface between academia and industry.
Second, there’s a need to increase the contribution of universities and public research institutes by, for example, ensuring the stability and predictability of research funding, balancing education, research and commercialisation, investing more in areas where Malaysia has comparative advantage, encouraging clear strategies for research activities, and developing research infrastructure and the sharing of equipment with business enterprises, especially SMEs.
One highly encouraging dimension of Wyckoff’s presentation was a graph showing strong growth in the number of papers published by Malaysian researchers — which has risen from about 5,000 in 2005 to nearly five times that number in 2013, with solid growth seen also in the number of international research collaborations in recent years.
A third key area for focus: Strengthening the human resource base for innovation — Malaysians in the workforce as well as students. Malaysia is encouraged to, for example, involve business representatives in the development of education curricula, and to better align the capabilities of graduating students with evolving business demands.
Finally, the review underlines a need to improve the overall governance of Malaysia’s STI system, replacing an overly complex system with a simplified and efficient architecture, in which the National Science Council and the Research Management Agency form important pillars: The NSC setting mid- to long-term strategic priorities and the RMA focusing on the efficient and transparent management of the allocation of funds for research projects.
These thoughtful and constructive suggestions complemented several presented to the council in an assessment of GSIAC’s first five years of work by Professor Mohamed Hassan, Chair of the United Nations University Council and co-chair of IAP (the Global Network of Science Academies), and Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Infosys, the world’s leading, technology-focused strategic consulting firm, headquartered in India. Among other proposals, these two distinguished reviewers called for the establishment of at least one interactive science centre in each state to promote “hands-on” science education and literacy.
They highlighted as well the opportunity to introduce to religious educational institutions inquiry-based learning and problem-solving skills, “which could be a unique contribution of Malaysia to the world”. Suggestions related to GSIAC-brokered pilot programmes include the nationwide scale up of My Body Fit and Fabulous, and Bitera STEM, which aim to foster the interest of young people in the pursuit of science and innovation, “From Cradle to Career”. The reviewers make several overarching recommendations as well, including:
CLOSE alignment of GSIAC efforts with the 11th Malaysia Plan and the post-2015 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs);
THE appointment of young innovators and additional women to the council;
THAT the council underscore the importance of science, technology and innovation to economic growth, job creation and prosperity; and,
THE encouragement of more South-South cooperation in science, technology and innovation, pursued through national Science into Action (S2A) initiatives, has been and will continue to be central to Malaysia’s progress moving forward. It is integral to the success of the 11th Malaysia Plan, the latest of the five-year national economic road maps that have served our country so well.
And we are grateful for the input of the GSIAC as we continue our journey. For five years now, the council has proven to be a highly valuable forum and we all benefit greatly from the insights of the many distinguished experts in this country and from around the world who volunteer their time and talent to help Malaysia realise its full potential in a sustainable way.
The writer is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Scientific Advisory Board and science adviser to the prime minister of Malaysia