FRIDAY, 04 MAY 2012 08:47

 

By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin
Pix Courtesy of Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment

BANGI, 26 April 2012 – The National University of Malaysia (UKM) and two German companies look set to cooperate in setting up an advanced materials testing laboratory said to be the most advanced in the country.

UKM also intends to work with another German firm in a slew of projects involving the environment and information technology.

Its Vice Chancellor, Prof Tan Sri Dato’ Wira Dr Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin was among those who witnessed the signing of two MoUs between the two German conglomerates, Zwick Asia and Infineon Technologies and UKM today.

Zwick Asia will equip one of the laboratories at the Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment with cutting-edge testing equipment while Infineon Technologies will supply the semiconductors for the hardware.

At the function UKM also signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) to submit a proposal to the German Academy of Sciences to fund studies on the environment and climate change.

Prof Sharifah Hapsah in her remarks noted that UKM has been undertaking many joint projects with German companies or universities, most of them in engineering and the environment.

She commented that the collaboration of many of UKM’s researchers have been funded by the German Academy of Sciences and the European Union.

She said there was a lot of interest in environmental technologies, climate change and information technology not only between UKM and German companies, but also between Malaysia and Germany.

Prof Sharifah Hapsah cited the joint PhD programme between UKM and UDE in engineering as having shown a lot of promise.

Also present at the signings were the German Ambassador to Malaysia, Dr Guenter Gruber and Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academics and International Affairs, Prof Datuk Dr Noor Azlan Ghazali.