Malaysian Research University

The implementation of International Higher Education Policy Borrowing: A Case study of Malaysia Research University Policy Implementation

1. Introduction

In the year 2015, 1.4 million students that had enrolled in Malaysia Higher Education Institution (Tertiary level). About 1.2 million of the students are registered in the Higher Education Institution under the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE).in total Malaysian Higher education instruction consist of 20 public universities, 33 polytechnics, 91 community colleges and 514 private colleges and private universities. This number are expected to increase to 2.5 million in the year 2025. (Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015-2025)

In the year 2006, The parliament of Malaysia announced to upgrade 4 Universities to be the Research University (RU) which are Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Another university which is Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) was announced as the 5th RU in the year 2010. The upgrade of a teaching university as RU give a lot of impact to the university. The university need to change their activities and management in line with the objective of a Malaysian Research University.

This is the responsibility of the university along the extra funding injection from the government. Among the features of RU are, offer research based program, competitive enrolment, high quality lecturers and the ratio between post graduate and undergraduate is 50 to 50. The goal of of a RU are:

• To increase research and development and commercialization activities.
• To increase the enrolment of postgraduate and postdoctoral to university.
• To increase the numbers of lecturers that hold a doctoral degree.
• To form and empower excellence institution.
• To increase the enrollment of international students
• To increase Malaysian University ranking in the international level.

RU hold some level of autonomy but at same time will be audited annually MOHE. 9 criteria of Malaysia Research Assessment Instrument (MYRA) are:

• General information
• Quantity and quality of researchers (25%)
• Quantity and quality of research (30%)
• Quantity of postgraduate students (10%)
• Quality of postgraduate students (5%)
• Innovations (10%)
• Professional services and Awards (7%)
• Networking and outreach (8%)
• Support facility (5%)

The research University concept is not a new concept for higher education institution. According to Albatch (2007), Research University in general serve a different contribution to the academic system and use a different type of funding structure. Quoting Albatch (2007):