JOHOR BAHRU, 23rd January: – A delegation comprising ambassadors and representatives from 13 European Union (EU) countries made a high-level visit to Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), today.
The delegation was led by H.E. Vincent Piket, Ambassador and Head of Delegation of the European Commission Delegation to Malaysia, and joined by ambassadors from German, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Spain, France and Croatia and representatives from Austria, Finland, Ireland, Czech Republic and Sweden.
UTM Vice Chancellor Professor Dato’ Ir. Dr. Zaini Ujang said, the visit aims to push on cooperation agenda and bilateral relations between EU countries and UTM.
“It is also an effort to enhance the awareness and familiarity of EU countries in Malaysia through proactive outreach and cooperation with the education sector,” he said.
In the introductory presentation for UTM,Dr.Zaini emphasized the need of re-establishing a New Synergy Partnership Framework between EU countries and UTM which covers collaborations in various programs including postgraduate programs, mobility program for students and staff, global partnership and research collaborations.
He revealed the various collaborative agenda UTM currently has with the EU counterparts including 10 EU projects, numbers of inbound staff and students from EU in UTM and UTM’s renowned partners from EU countries, such as Imperial College, University of Cambridge, Delft University of Technology (Delft TU), Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Lund University, Lotus, to name a few.
In a message delivered by the EU Delegation to promote bilateral cooperation between EU and UTM, the H. E Vincent Piket highlighted the key EU Research Framework fund, the Seventh Framework Programme for research and technological development (FP7-RTD) as the EU’s main instrument for funding research in Europe with a total budget of EUR53.2 billion applies to the year 2007-2013.
“EU cooperation with Malaysia in RTD under the FP7 currently accounts for a total of 15 projects with a total budget of EUR79 million involving partners from Malaysian higher education institutions, NGOs/research organizations, companies and government.
“We hope more researchers from UTM to actively applying the grant by engaging with EU counterparts,” he said.
Meanwhile, he introduced MYEULINK, a project based in Malaysia and funded by EU with support from the Minister of Higher Education (MOHE) to encourage cooperation, embedding of EU-centric modules in curricula, and policy dialogues in higher education.
“Researchers from UTM are invited to attend a major EU-Malaysia Higher Education Fair on 17-18 March 2012 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre with an associated high level conference on the theme “Transnational Education – Opportunities and Challenges in the 21st century: Malaysian and European perspectives”.
“The conference will be held on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 March 2012, with a networking reception on the evening of Friday 16 March. This will be an excellent platform for Malaysian researchers to establish partnerships for scholarships, exchange programmes and research opportunities,” he added.
In the interactive session, Dr. Zaini shared UTM’s recent experience in co-hosting one day event of New Zealand Week in UTM’s International Campus in Kuala Lumpur.
He commented that that was an excellent platform where countries’ ambassadors could promote their higher education within Malaysian higher education of institutions while strengthening bilateral relationships.
A forum session with UTM’s students entitled “EU: A Community of Member States and People”was chaired by H.E Vincent Piket and moderated by, the Director of International Office, UTM Prof. Dr. Mohd. Ismail Abd Aziz.
The session aimed to raise the awareness and familiarity of EU to UTM’s students and introduced EU as a community comprising of 27th different states that stay united though in diversity.
H.E Vincent Piket highlighted EU as an open community that welcomes students from all nationalities to join the universities and revealed the opportunities provided by EU to Malaysian students including scholarships, internships and the Erasmus Mundus Mobility grants.
This high-level visit ended with a friendship futsal match between the EU Delegation and the top management of UTM in the new sport complex at stadium of UTM. The delegation also visited Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA) in the morning.