Why Malaysia’s R&D crisis needs collaborative shock therapy — Ahmad Ibrahim

MAY 29 — For decades, Malaysia has been trapped in a cruel statistical paradox. We pump billions into research centres and universities, produce a respectable volume of academic papers, yet our commercialisation rate remains stuck in the single digits. Industries shrug. The public grumbles. And the cycle of publish-and-perish continues.

The Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) recently diagnosed the illness accurately: it’s not a funding problem, nor a talent problem at its core. It’s a collaboration problem. We simply do not know how to work together.

Now, a small but symbolic crack has appeared in the silo wall. UCSI University (private) and Universiti Malaya (public) have launched a matching grant research scheme – the first formal partnership of its kind between Malaysia’s public and private university sectors. It is laudable, yes. But will it be contagious? Only if we stop treating it as a novelty and start treating isolation as a national emergency.

Let’s be blunt: Malaysia’s R&D ecosystem is feudal. Public universities operate like independent kingdoms, guarding IP and competing for the same shrinking government pot. Government research centres (MARDI, FRIM, MIMOS) often duplicate work. Meanwhile, the private sector – especially SMEs – sees research as a luxury, not a lifeline. Why invest in R&D when you can import technology from China or Germany?

The result is a tragic irony: in successful economies like South Korea, Germany, or even Vietnam, industry funds and leads the majority of R&D. Here, the reverse is true. Government labs and academics do the science; industry waits for a finished, risk-free product. Nothing gets commercialised because no one co-created it from the start.

The UCSI-UM partnership is genuinely welcome. A matching grant forces both parties to put money on the table – skin in the game. It bridges the public-private funding divide. And because it’s mission-oriented (likely aligned with ASM’s grand challenges like food or energy security), it’s not abstract curiosity but problem-solving research.

But let’s not overstate it. One swallow does not make a summer. Other private universities will watch cautiously. Public universities, bound by rigid procurement and IP laws, may hesitate. And without industry at the table – real industry with real factory floors and supply chains – this remains an academic exercise.

If Malaysia is serious about breaking the “not working together” culture, we need more than feel-good MOUs. We need structural shock therapy.

First, rewrite the KPI for public researchers. Stop counting papers. Start counting industry attachments, co-patents, and spin-offs. A professor’s promotion should depend less on journal impact factor and more on how many firms they have collaborated with.

The author says Malaysia has the brains, labs but lacks the will to unlock doors to conduct R&D as the current ecosystem is run in a ‘feudal’ manner with public universities competing for limited government funds while government research centres often duplicating work and the private sector treating research as a ‘luxury’ instead of a lifeline. — Pexels pic

Second, create “collaboration vouchers.” A small, fast-disbursing government grant (say RM50,000) that is only accessible to a consortium comprising at least one public university, one private university, and one SME. No solo applications allowed. Force the marriage.

Third, overhaul IP ownership rules. Currently, public universities often claim full ownership of research outputs, which terrifies private partners. Malaysia needs a default rule: for jointly funded research, IP is jointly owned, with clear licensing terms for commercialisation. Make it easy to share, not hoard.

Fourth, and most radically, establish a National Challenge Lab. Model it on Singapore’s or the UK’s ARIA. A small, agile agency with its own budget that commissions “moonshot” projects – e.g., reducing rice import dependency by 30 per cent in five years. Only cross-sector teams (public uni + private uni + agritech firm + logistics company) can bid. No consortium, no contract.

Some will argue that collaboration is messy, that academics are prima donnas, that businesses want quick returns. All true. But the cost of staying fragmented is far higher. Every year we fail to commercialise local research, we send billions overseas for technology we could have built. We lose young scientists to more integrated systems abroad. And we remain a consumer of innovation, never a producer.

The UCSI-UM partnership is a small bridge across a very wide river. But one bridge does not end isolation. We need a hundred such crossings, backed by funding rules that penalise solitude and reward handshakes.

Malaysia has the brains. We have the labs. What we lack is the will to unlock doors.

The question is not whether collaboration will incite others – it already has. The question is whether the rest of the system will follow, or whether we will let this promising start wither into another footnote. The silence of working alone is deafening. It’s time for some noise.

*The author is affiliated with the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy Studies at UCSI University and is an Adjunct Professor at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya. He can be reached at ahmadibrahim@ucsiuniversity.edu.my .

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.

المصدر: Malay Mail