By Nadia Sapuan
Pictures by Abd Raai Osman

BANGI, 26 April 2017 – As a leading research university, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) will continue to be involved in ASEAN initiatives as a support for greater openness towards a richer interaction between ASEAN’s academic community.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Industry and Community Partnerships, Prof Dato’ Dr Imran Ho Abdullah said UKM will continue to engage in various ASEAN initiatives through consulting, research collaboration, student exchange and special projects related to regional integration.

“UKM has been involved with many initiatives of ASEAN and one of them are the student exchange programmes between UKM and other ASEAN countries.

“Furthermore, we also have many students from ASEAN countries pursuing post-graduate at UKM,” he said while delivering his speech at the Opening Ceremony of the 6th International Conference on Social Science and Humanities (ICOSH-UKM 2017), recently.

He added the international seminar can be a platform for discussion on domestic and foreign issues.

“Over the years, ICOSH has grown in strength and substance, emerging as a credible forum for the sharing of knowledge in all disciplines of social sciences and humanities in the country, the region and beyond,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the ICOSH-UKM 2017, Assoc Prof Dr D Ravichandran said the conference aims to bring together academic experts to discuss the latest findings of their research in addition to bringing collaboration for the future research.

He said the conference has attracted about 200 participants from different academic backgrounds such as psychology, history, communication and anthropology.

This biennial international conference carried the theme of Regionalism and Community Building in ASEAN: Perspectives from Social Sciences and Humanities.

Also present was Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Innovation and also as a Dean of Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Prof Dr Mohd Ekhwan Toriman.