Imperial celebrates vital ties with Malaysia

Imperial's President, Professor Hugh Brady, attended a networking event for alumni to celebrate Imperial's vital ties with Malaysia.

Earlier this month, a delegation from Imperial, including President Professor Hugh Brady, travelled to Malaysia to celebrate Imperial’s collaborations across the country.  

Imperial is one of Malaysia’s top science, engineering and medicine research collaborators in the UK, with Imperial researchers co-authoring more than 1,000 publications with Malaysian peers in the last five years. Each year the Malaysian government supports hundreds of scholars at Imperial through scholarship schemes, including from Malaysian government training agency MARA, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Education. 

The President attended an alumni reception in Kuala Lumpar, where he addressed the Imperial College Alumni Association of Malaysia, chaired by Imperial alumnus Sharifuddin Al-Manaf (BEng, Aeronautical Engineering, 1994). President Brady reflected on the achievements of key collaborations between Imperial and Malaysia to improve sustainability, develop low-carbon technologies, and monitor changing forest ecosystems.

Developing low-carbon technologies 

The Centre for Low Carbon Transport – a collaboration between world class researchers from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and Imperial – is spearheading research on low carbon technologies for transport applications.

Also leading the charge to find low-carbon technologies are researchers at the Brahmal Vasudevan Institute for Sustainable Aviation - established following a £25 million gift from Malaysian alumnus Brahmal Vasudevan (Aeronautical Engineering 1990), founder and CEO of private equity firm Creador, and his wife Shanthi Kandiah, founder of legal firm SK Chambers.

The Institute is helping to usher in a new future of flight. In November 2023, the world’s first transatlantic flight run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel took off, as part of a collaboration between the Institute, University of Sheffield, Virgin Atlantic, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, BP, and others.  

Improving sustainability

The PETRONAS Centre for Engineering of Multiphase Systems (PETCEMS), led by Professor Omar Matar, is an innovative collaboration between Malaysia’s state energy company PETRONAS and Imperial to promote greener and more advanced energy systems. The innovative collaboration between Imperial's Department of Chemical Engineering and Departments of Chemistry, and Earth Science and Engineering uses computational modelling coupled with advanced experiments and chemical synthesis to help PETRONAS to become more sustainable. 

Ecological monitoring

The Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems (SAFE) project, in partnership with Universiti Malaysia Sabah, is one of the world’s largest ecological experiments providing insights into how forest ecosystems are affected by logging and deforestation. The project, led by Professor Rob Ewers, aims to understand the impact of agriculture on the rainforest and how to achieve food production, economic benefit, and ecosystem preservation. 

The SAFE Project brings together researchers from Imperial, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, and has been supported by the UK Royal Society’s South East Asia Rainforest Research Programme (SEARRP) and a donation from the Sime Darby Foundation in Malaysia. 

Professor Hugh Brady, President of Imperial College London, said: "Malaysia is an important partner in Imperial's mission to develop science, engineering, medicine and business for the benefit of society. We hope to continue to welcome students from Malaysia and further strengthen our ties in the coming years through our research collaborations and alumni community.”

This article was first published on 21 February by Imperial College London.