On the 16-17 October 2019, the 8th Engineering International Conference (EIC-2019) was held in the Fakultas Teknik, Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNNES), Indonesia. UTM was represented by Assoc. Prof Dr Zainul Akmar Zakaria from the School of Chemical and Energy Engineering (SKT), Faculty of Engineering who participated as one of the Keynote Speakers. He was accompanied by two of SKT’s Ph.D students namely Raja Safazliana Raja Sulong and Mohd Amir Aysraf Mohd Hamzah, who were both oral presenters in this conference. An Adjunct Professor from the

Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Dr. Wan Azlina Ahmad was also invited by the Chemical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering for a Group discussion Forum  on “Scaling Up Fundamental Research to the Pilot Plant Project”. A total of around 100 participants from all over Indonesia registered for EIC-2019. On the 17th of October 2019, Dr Zainul had the privilege to serve as “Narasumber” in the yearly UNNES’ journal publication workshop. The “Workshop Pendampingan Penulisan dan Submission Manuskrip Untuk Publikasi Pada Jurnal Internasional” session was organized by the “Lembaga Penelitian dan Pengabdian Kepada Masyarakat, UNNES”, equivalent to the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation office in UTM, was held at a country resort located in the Salatiga town, near Semarang. It was attended by UNNES’ lecturers with good track record in research and publication and the selection of participants is by invitation-only basis. Immediate outcome from EIC-2019 was the submission of jointly authored manuscript to Jurnal Teknologi as well as co-editing of one book to be published by Springer. For the record, Dr Zainul and SKT’s Ph.D students participation in EIC-2019 was made possible through the invitation from Dr Ratna Dewi Kusumaningtyas from the Teknik Kimia, Fakultas Teknik, UNNES. Dr. Ratna was one of the participants in the University President’s Forum (UPF) event organized by UTM in 2015 and to date, has sent four of her undergraduate students to undergo a 1-month research attachment in Dr Zainul’s laboratory in the Institute of Bioproduct Development, SKT, UTM. It is envisaged that more collaborations between UTM and UNNES will be fostered in the future.