The Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) introduced the concept of Higher Institution Centre of Excellence (HICOE) in addition to the existing programme of recognizing 4 (now 5) Research Universities namely UKM, UM, USM and UPM. In 2008, more than 150 institutes submitted their ‘entries’ and documentation to the MOHE. A stringent screening process shortlisted the list to 30 institutes and teams of auditors performed a comprehensive assessment visit on each of the candidate institutes. UMBI was audited a team of 6 panel members on the 2nd of June 2008. On the 30th of October 2009, the steering committee finally approved only 6 institutes from all over the country to be given the status of a HICOE. UMBI created history by being the only institute from UKM to be recognized as a HiCOE. The certificate for the HICOE status was officially awarded by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Yang Amat Berhormat Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Haji Abdul Razak at a special ceremony held at the Dewan Perdana, Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC) on the 1st of April 2010.

UMBI was approved to embark on cancer biomarker study focusing on colorectal cancer and glioma (brain cancer) for the HICoE focused area. UMBI was allocated RM 5.6 million research grant for 3 years program.  Under this 3-year HICoE program, UMBI has produced 13 MSc and 4 PhD students working on 17 projects. Several high impact publications have also been produced in  high-impact journals.

UKM and UMBI are very proud of the recognition as a HICOE. We hope it will provide the impetus for us to raise our performance and show the quality research output as a regional centre of excellence.