KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 24): Malaysia’s five research universities carried out more than 1,000 research projects that turned out unsatisfactory in 2023 while costing RM148.04 million, according to the auditor general.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia had the most ‘unsatisfactory’ projects, a report by the auditor general released on Monday showed. The university also had the highest number of ‘problematic’ projects out of the total 151 projects that consumed RM23.69 million, the report noted.

The Higher Education Ministry and the research universities have been recommended to strengthen regular monitoring of research project performance and implementation to ensure that they are in line with planned objectives and meet their targets, the auditor general said.

There are four other research universities in Malaysia — Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Together, the five universities received fundamental research grants totalling RM285.44 million.

The grant is the highest allocation provided by the ministry to local universities, aimed to enhance research excellence in Malaysia by generating new theories, concepts, and ideas with the potential to be translated into applied research.

However, only 236 projects showed ‘good’ progress and 571 has ‘satisfactory’ status out of 2,077 projects that received the grant.

Projects deemed 'unsatisfactory' experienced schedule delays or require closer monitoring, while ‘problematic’ projects failed to meet their outlined performance or financial targets and are proposed to be terminated after two warnings.

UTM had 263 ‘unsatisfactory’ projects, followed by USM with 261 projects, UM with 145 projects and UPM with 111 projects.

The auditor general recommended that the ministry assess applications from research management centres on feasibility of the research projects to prevent them from being abandoned or terminated.

Further, the ministry should establish “a clear policy regarding the status of remaining allocations for completed research projects to ensure that these funds can be fully utilised by the research universities,” the auditor general added.

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