BRUNEI-MUARA

BRUNEI is looking for more research collaboration with foreign educational institutions for sharing as well as acquiring knowledge.

Dr Fazean Irdayati Idris, Senior Lecturer for Clinical Academic at the Universiti Brunei Darussalam’s (UBD) PAPRSB Institute of Health Sciences told The Brunei Times yesterday that they are looking forward to work with others in undertaking joint research.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Ninth Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei Medical Sciences Conference, she said that “as the three nations are closely-knitted and share the same culture and similar populations, research can be strengthened”.

“When we have similar populations and teachings, as well as academic issues, we can identify common themes and see whether we can improve ourselves in terms of training, human capacity development, exchange of students and staff and strengthen our research,” she said.

She added that research “can only be strong when there are more people, teams and experts involved”.

Brunei also has its own group of experts, and when experts communicate and collaborate with each other, it makes a project stronger, Dr Fazean Irdayati said.

She expressed hopes that in the three-day conference, academics will be able to share not only their knowledge and skills in research and academia, but also formulate research collaborations and find common themes of research interests.

Dr Hjh Maslina Hj Mohsin, Dean at the PAPRSB Institute of Health Sciences, said she hoped the conference would rekindle the spirit of research and collaborative work, and ultimately contribute to better health and healthcare of the populations within the three countries.

She said in the health field here, there is still a vast amount of research to be done, and doors are open for collaboration with institutions internationally.

“I believe we can achieve this vision if we put the right mindset to it,” she said.

Senior academics from Malaysia and Indonesia shared the same sentiments.

Visiting Professor Dr Saleha Sungkar at Universitas Indonesia’s Faculty of Medicine said they hope that having indigenous properties among the three nations would become a focus for collaboration, especially in establishing a “Malayu” centre among the countries.

“Based on Malayu ethnic and race, we can talk about the role of genetics that influence both communicable and non-communicable diseases in our region. Starting from womb to tomb, from prevention, medication and rehabilitation of managing the diseases,” she said.

Other opportunities, Professor Dr Saleha added, is to enhance collaboration on capacity building to increase the number of international publications and possibilities to manage the same journal together.

Meanwhile, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s (UKM) Dean at the Faculty of Medicine and Director, Professor Dato’ Dr Raymond Azman Ali said instead of being a segregated and closed medical community, they need to create bridges across the ASEAN countries for free exchange of information and to address relevant scientific questions.

“By joining forces, we will hopefully become a formidable health research authority in the eyes of the world,” he said. The three-day conference is a biannual collaboration between PAPRSB Institute of Health Sciences, UKM’s Faculty of Medicine and Universitas Indonesia. The event serves as an important avenue for exchanging ideas, evidences and information to initiate research collaborations, as well as research publications amongst the faculty members in the regional countries.

The Brunei Times