UTP Signs MOU with Three Victorian Universities (27 February 2015)
Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Monash University, University of Melbourne and Federation University from The State of Victoria, Australia to collaborate in several key areas namely corrosion, ionic liquids, shale gas, enhanced oil recovery, biofuels and biochemical and biomedical technology.
This is a joint, high level collaboration between the three Victorian universities and UTP, and is facilitated by the Victorian State Government of Australia.
UTP Vice Chancellor, Datuk Ir (Dr) Abdul Rahim Hashim signed the MOU on behalf of UTP.
Monash University was represented by Professor Abid Khan, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice President (Global Engagement), University of Melbourne was represented by Professor Sandra Kentish, Head, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, while Federation University was represented by Dr Julien Ugon, Research Fellow & Deputy Director, Centre for Informatics and Applied OptimisationRebecca Hall, Director, International Education Unit of Victorian State Government of Australia and Puan Raiha Azni Abdul Rahman, Senior Vice President, Group Human Resource PETRONAS & Chairman of Institute of Technology PETRONAS Sdn Bhd also signed the MOU.
The ceremony was witnessed by Deputy Minister of Education I, Datuk Mary Yap Kain Ching and Australian Deputy High Commissioner to Malaysia, Angela McDonald.
Datuk Abdul Rahim said that the signing of this MOU is another important milestone in UTP’s journey towards becoming an internationally recognised higher learning institution. The collaboration aims to bring together the three Victorian universities to work with researchers from UTP and develop long-term and sustainable relationships that will support future innovation.
”UTP offers our collaborators state-of-the-art facilities as well as expertise in numerous areas. Among them, our multiphase flowloop use for corrosion research is a unique facility to study corrosion in a high-pressure-high temperature environment. This facility is only available in a few other institutions in the world and certainly the only one in Malaysia.
“Our Ionic Liquid Research Centre is also well endowed with top facilities and has been collaborating with top research institutions for the last several years. For biofuels research, our research is enhanced by the presence of Mitsubishi Professorial Chair, Prof Uemura, who has established CBBR, the Centre for Biofuel and Biochemical Research, with funding support from Mitsubishi and UTP. In Biomedical, the collaboration will be with CISIR, our Centre for Intelligent Signal and Imaging Research, which was recently inducted as one of the country’s National Higher Institution Centre of Excellence,” said Abdul Rahim.
Abdul Rahim also said that UTP is also jointly working on a neuroscience and neural engineering related research projects in the area of biomedical signal and imaging to work on a joint brain related project. For the shale gas research, UTP will be working together on research areas such as gas purification, fracking technology and water purification.
“The State Government of Victoria and Victorian education providers have a long history of engagement with Malaysian higher learning institutions and industry partners. There are many examples of this engagement already in place through joint campus developments, industry training partnerships, student mobility projects and innovative research engagement.
“This MoU with UTP is a landmark opportunity for the stakeholders to take engagement to a new level. The partnership with three leading Victorian universities - Monash, Melbourne and Federation – will help us realise new capacity to create innovative approaches in oil and gas that will impact the future of energy systems,” said Hall.
