UNIVERSITI Brunei Darussalam (UBD) Vice-Chancellor Dato Paduka Dr Haji Zulkarnain bin Haji Hanafi said that as a principal agent for human development, the 21st Century university’s major role in the national economy means that it must constantly reorient around the goals of relevance, addressing societal needs and providing the skills for global competitiveness.

The vice-chancellor pointed this out during the opening of the 2013 Brunei Dialogue, which gathered distinguished university leaders from 22 universities from 16 countries across the Asia-Pacific and Middle East.

Rather than taking on an open forum format with a few keynote speakers and a large number of participants, the 2013 Brunei Dialogue was a smaller gathering, employing a “participatory workshop” framework, a format thought would generate the most benefits.

The workshop emphasised on the theme ‘Transforming Universities on the Road to Research Excellence.’

HRH Prince ‘Abdul Malik graced the opening ceremony as the personal representative of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam. The opening ceremony was held at the Senate Room of the UBD Chancellor Hall.

The UBD vice-chancellor in his welcoming address said that the changing demands of the 21st Century global economy on graduates have called for a corresponding review of the role of universities in this new socio-economic landscape.

If we acknowledge that the 21st Century drivers of this economy – which are innovation, flexibility and creativity – are qualities which educational institutions are uniquely placed to nurture, then the 21st Century university must therefore also be recognised as a key supplier of the commodities of knowledge and innovation to the national economy.

“Many of the universities present here today have already opened their doors to questioning how best to ‘review and restructure’ in the pursuit of academic excellence in the 21st Century. We hope that the Brunei Dialogue will contribute to answering these questions, and perhaps to raising others that will need to be considered towards this shared goal,” he said.

The dialogue hopes to offer a clear geographical focus, with universities present mainly from the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, particularly Asean.

“Within these regions, we share many commonalities and probably many similar issues and challenges, but also an inevitable diversity of experience due to, amongst others, historical and environmental factors. Both the commonalities and the diversity will, I am sure, offer a rich learning experience for all of us,” he explained.

The vice-chancellor later briefly addressed the hype surrounding ranking, ranking exercises and the academic media’s interest in “world-class universities”.

“It is UBD’s view that UBD should be cognizant of the value as well as the issues related to ranking exercises. While acknowledging the place of ranking exercises, the focus of the Brunei Dialogue is, rather, to look at the longer-term foundation building aspects of university development.”

He believes the title of the dialogue encompasses the “road” and he suggested, a rather long road, to research excellence.

The vice-chancellor expressed hopes that over the next two days, they will be able to focus their energies on developing practical, operational, long-term strategies for research excellence in each of our universities.

Speaking about UBD, the vice-chancellor said as the premier national university of this country, UBD has a significant role to play in supporting the nation’s long-term strategic goals, known as Vision 2035. To fulfil this responsibility, he said, UBD had embarked on a journey of transformation five years ago following an intensive review.

“Like UBD, many of those present here today are from national universities who must occupy multiple roles and expectations. National universities have a responsibility to produce a skilled workforce for the country – we cannot focus on upstream basic research at the expense of quality teaching. As such, I hope the dialogue will address these multiple, and sometimes conflicting functions of national universities, and consider what a more balanced approach might look like.

“I hope the discussions will deal with primary research that will contribute to academia, but also that they will move beyond considerations of citation count, journal impact and H-index, and discuss applied research that will have impact on national policy and society, and which, in the long-run, will enhance the well-being of our respective peoples,” he said. - Borneo Bulletin (4 June 2013)