Commenting of Hunter's comments on Malaysian research

"http://asiancorrespondent.com/2015/09/why-malaysian-university-research-has-a-long-way-to-go/"

I admit that his comments are good and sincere but a few things need to be put into perspective.

"Malaysian university research needs a paradigm change. Instead of following national agendas instituted by bureaucrats, bottom up thinking needs to be appreciated and accepted. Most technologies already exist, and don’t need to be re-invented. What is needed is applying these technologies to community and industrial problems that exist outside local universities."

Malaysian researchers are aware of this but implimented poorly. The reasons can be attributed to my comments later.

"Citations to research need reward rather than the production of raw papers. A realization is needed that patenting concepts and products that have no commercial value is a futile pursuit, although it fulfills a university KPI."
Not actually true but more emphasis on Indexed journals that will somehow generate quality citations.
Not necessarilty true but many other nations also suffer the same situations. This is a global academic problem.

"Grant panels need to practice meritocracy, and grant funds to the most innovative rather than the conservative."
This is called the safe approach. The panels are pressured to provide value for money for the research fund.
 Innovative research is just to risky and worse, not needed by Malaysia.

"Although overall research output is increasing from universities within Malaysia, emphasis must now be put on producing quality research if Malaysia is not to continually fall behind its other ASEAN neighbors."

I have not got the figures on rankings in ASEAN.  It could be due to other reasons such as cost of living.
The cost of living in Malaysia is higher than in Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia. Malaysia needs to spend more to achieve similar results.

We are doing well compared to Indonesia, e.g. Compared to the size of Indonesia, Malaysia is therefore much much better.