Universitas Islam Riau (UIR) has appointed Assoc Prof. Dr. Agus Arsad and Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Mohd Abbas Ahmad Zaini from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) as the Visiting Professors under World Class Professor program (WCP) by Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology, Indonesia. They were also invited to share their thoughts in Professor Talk sessions with academicians and students from the Faculty of Engineering, UIR. They were requested to give talks on how to write high impact publication, Washington Accord Accreditation Procedures, Green Polymers for EOR and Laboratory Standard Operation Procedures. They are expected to facilitate academicians and students of UIR to be able to publish in Q1/Q2 ranking journals.
The appointment is a continuation of the on-going collaboration with UIR that has been initiated by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Muslim Abdurahman, a lecturer of Petroleum Engineering at the Department of Petroleum Engineering and the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering UIR. The current project is a joint research from 2020 to 2022 on Chemical EOR at PT. SPR Langgak, Pekan Baru.
Dr. Agus is a PhD graduate from UTM and has been with UTM since 2001. Currently, he is a senior lecturer of Bioprocess and Polymer Engineering and R&D Manager at UTM-MPRC Institute for Oil and Gas (IFOG). His areas of expertise are study of polymer rheology and the synthesizing of conductive polymer. Dr. Abbas obtained a PhD in Applied Chemistry from Chiba University, Japan in 2010. He is a senior lecturer of Chemical Engineering and Director of Centre of Lipids Engineering & Applied Research (CLEAR) in UTM. His research interests are mainly about the synthesis adsorbent materials and adsorption.
The scheduled activities in the WCP programme include guest lectures, workshops, and joint publications. The WCP programme is from August to November 2021. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all activities are to be conducted online. The activities will also involve lecturers from the Petroleum Engineering Department, Mrs. Novia Rita (Head of Petroleum Study Program) and Mr. Dike Fitriansyah Putra. Dr. Agus and Dr. Abbas together with the UIR counterparts are responsible to produce two papers for submission to reputable international journals of at least Q2.
WCP is a stepping stone in building international networks and provides support in producing world-class papers/journals. Among the requirements for WCP program are doctoral education level, Functional Position of Head Lector (Assoc. Professor), reputable international publications, H index >3, and partners at home country or abroad with H index > 10. With the stipulated conditions, 41 universities and 77 lecturers from all over Indonesia have successfully granted the funding from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research and Technology, Indonesia to run the programme for 2021.