Themed Post Pandemic: New Path in Research and Education, the UTAR International Collaborative Partner (ICP) & Research and Development (R&D) Colloquium 2021 was successfully organised by the Institute of Postgraduate Studies and Research (IPSR) in collaboration with UTAR Research Centre (RC) on 11 December 2021 via Zoom.

The colloquium aimed to provide a platform for researchers to share their research findings and look into potential research collaboration. It discussed topics on Engineering and Technology; Science, Medical and Health, and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM); and Arts and Social Science.

UTAR President Ir Prof Dr Ewe Hong Tat commented during his opening remark, “Cross-disciplinary research is very important for us to explore other fields of interest and bring about good ideas for collaboration on various topics. This pandemic has brought many challenges and transformed the way we live, socialise and work, as well as the way we learn and teach students. Before this, we noticed collaboration connecting researchers through the internet to conduct discussion is becoming more important.”

He also highlighted, “Despite that, the pandemic has also brought forth some encouraging outcome and much greater appreciation to educators; growing reliance on the internet. Businesses have moved online and work processes have become more digitised. Decision-makers have to devise new mechanisms and adopt digitalisation to deliver essential services. Along with this transformation, the need to chart for stronger research and education, and seek solutions have also become important, therefore this colloquium is useful to share ideas and solutions. It is also important that we keep ourselves updated with the new knowledge to advance further and establish more collaborations.”

Following after was the keynote lectures by three invited speakers. Prof Dr Edwin K.P. Chong spoke on Post-pandemic Research in the Information Sciences. He mentioned that post-pandemic and other contemporary researches are related to infectious diseases, food security, community resilience to hazards, water resources, energy and sustainability, and climate and environment. He also highlighted that information sciences have important roles to play because these researches look into understanding the global behaviour of organisms; detecting and assessing the threat of emerging pathogens; and examining human attitudes, social behaviour and drivers contributing to disease transmission.

The second speaker Prof Jayaraman Tiru enlightened participants on New Gresham’s Law – Pandemic Drives away Research Work. He explained that bad times drive away creative works because the pandemic has altered academic routine. He pointed out that the pandemic has caused priority to be given to online teaching and students’ retention, while research and publication were sacrificed. The evidence, as he listed, were the reduction in the number of working papers published, presentation of findings, conferences, consultancy work; pending of research work; delayed printing of research work; and the absence of new research projects.

Final keynote speaker Ir Dr Koay Loke Kean, spoke about The Potential of Education in Malaysia after the Pandemic. Participants learnt about the changes caused by the pandemic, the demanding criteria of students, and the involvement of ViTrox in education. He highlighted the application of work-based learning (WBL) by the company, and explained that it reduces the knowledge gap of fresh graduates when entering work; enables students to practise skills in real-world scenarios; helps students to develop soft skills; enables students to observe professionals in action; and helps students build networks with potential employers.

The highlight of the virtual colloquium was the three parallel sessions conducted. Session 1 was themed Post Pandemic Virtual Learning/Exploring Immersive Technology for Learning in the Post-pandemic World. Session 2 was themed Post-Pandemic Research Directions in Biological and Biomedical Science, Session 3 discussed Post Pandemic Digital Education and the Humanities. The colloquium ended with a closing remark by UTAR Vice President for R&D and Commercialisation Prof Ts Dr Faidz bin Abd Rahman.

Below is the list of speakers and their research topics presented during the virtual colloquium.