High-tech research centres to entice experts to return

Star: KUALA LUMPUR: The Government will embark on a programme to provide high-tech research facilities, in a move to attract foreign-based research experts to return home.
Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr Fong Chan Onn said the programme, which will be carried out under the 9th Malaysia Plan, would include providing research facilities with state-of-the-art equipment and government grants to conduct research.
“Research scientists are disappointed that we do not have state-of-the-art equipment when they return, and the Government will try to provide it to them,” he said.
He said high-tech research equipment was costly, so the Government would need to come in to provide the necessary facilities.
“We will continue to talk with the Multimedia Development Corporation so we can jointly build the necessary research infrastructure to support the needs of the returning scientists,” he said.
Fong said many of the returning research scientists were top professors earning high wages overseas so they were often not keen to join local universities where they would be paid much less.
He said they preferred to work as contract researchers and the government grants would help them conduct their research here.
The minister said about 300 experts had returned to work here since 2001 and 100 of them were medical experts who had joined local universities and private medical centres, while the rest had finance, accounting and information technology experience.
He said there was high demand especially in the private sector for experts from these fields, which was why more of them were willing to come back to work in Malaysia.
“Medical specialists who have returned have made a significant contribution in the universities as medical professors and lecturers, and by serving as specialists in private medical centres,” he said.
He said they had been instrumental in transforming Malaysia into a medical tourism hub, adding that many tourists from the Middle East, Thailand and Indonesia had been visiting private medical centres in Penang and Kuala Lumpur for plastic surgery, medical examinations and treatment.