Journal of Research Management and Governance

Water Research Productivity, Trends and Collaborations in Malaysia between 1964 to 2012

Teong Han Chew — 2018-12-31

The research in water cycle management is an important endeavour in any nation’s environmental management practices. Bibliometric examination the breadth and scope of research is one way to study past research focus. This will allow establishment of prior research trends, output and performance in order to reorient future resources, improve research collaborations and research return of investment. In this study, publications that are available on online from Web of Science and SCOPUS were examined using bibliometric analysis to visualize past research focus, institutional and author collaborations, clusters of peer research networks, lead institutions associated with the water cycle management in Malaysia from 1964 to 2012. Results showed that 80% of publications were indexed in Scopus with 5277 unique authors from 814 institutions. Significant ‘alpha researcher’ phenomenon was detected where strong principal investigators do not collaborate with each other, often only linked with ‘bridging’ individual that adopt a ‘middle man’ strategy, connecting two ‘alpha researchers’ together. Although UM is historically the initiator of many water research since 1972, UPM, USM and UKM are the current research leaders. Research universities UPM, USM, UKM and UTM possess good internal collaboration while UM only interact with external collaborators, possibly due to the highly competitive nature among themselves. Analysis of research topics showed that water pollution has been a perennial research interest since the 1990s while the geological focus has been on the river and coastal areas with studies on lake and islands receiving the least attention. Future awarding of research resources should take into account these historical insights in order to improve research allocations and institutional collaborations.

Initializing multi-stakeholder engagement in the context of Marine Protected Area management and capacity-building programmes: A Tun Mustapha Park case study

Sharlene S. Boey — 2018-12-31

As global trends in Marine Protected Area (MPA) management shift towards participatory co-governance, the importance of effective stakeholder engagement in its implementation stages warrant greater emphasis. This case study highlights key lessons learned from the employment of a mixture of focus group discussions (FGDs), interviews and reconnaissance surveys in a preliminary study-site visit to Tun Mustapha Park (TMP), Sabah, Malaysia, where our research team is undertaking a 4-year research and capacity-building project. We found that trust building, understanding the local culture and politics, and recognition of complex stakeholder dynamics were key elements to successful engagement, while identifying key decision-makers for follow-ups were crucial for on-going engagement. This paper presents insights into the types of information collected by our team, which would be useful among conservation practitioners who will be conducting similar engagement work in the future.

Realizing Research Impact and the Experience of a Malaysian University

Shaliza Ibrahim — 2018-12-31

This paper touches on a range of aspects that affect the realization of research impact. Malaysia has invested significantly in research and we have world class researchers who have proven themselves with high impact publications. However, there is still a lack of clear connection when it comes to relating research output to resources. This paper recommends proper initial research planning involving multi-sectorial stakeholders, and identification of impact and impact pathways in conceptualizing research projects. Strong institutional support in the form of professional research managers to assist researchers in research processes is important to ensure that the research activities are run smoothly and monitored well. . Initiatives to enhance researchers networking, mobility and competency through relevant training programmes will encourage our academics to expand their horizon and generate new ideas for research. Considering the amount of investment that has been made and the conducive environment that we have at universities, it may seem that we are not fully capturing or extracting all the results and products of our research endeavour. It is thus highly desired that Malaysia should have sound database and data management system to capture all the work that has been done and make the information accessible to research managers as well as researchers to do strategic analyses.

Philanthropic Fund Raising for Higher Education

A.S.M.A. Haseeb — 2018-12-31

With the recent trend towards mass higher education, funding for higher education has become an important issue around the globe. Many governments do not seem to be able to afford it. Economic crisis from time to time makes the situation even worse. Fundraising by universities from alternative sources is increasingly being discussed. This article intends to give an introduction to philanthropic fundraising for higher education and research. Early history of fundraising for higher education and fundraising scenarios in the US, UK and EU are presented. Different models of university fundraising is outlined. Some thoughts on the potential of university fundraising in the Malaysian context are presented towards the end.