Berit Viuf – DDRN

The MUCED experience: New teaching methods in Malaysia

Berit Viuf — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 15:17:44 +0000

One of the elements in MUCED was introducing Malaysian lecturers and students to new teaching methods. This introduction to group work and Problem Based Learning (PBL) had both direct and indirect benefits in the Malaysian higher education system, participants says.

MUCED was focused on designing educational programmes to prepare Malaysian students to future challenges of environmental innovation and management. An analysis of the current education system at the time, revealed that cost-efficient methods to do this would be to optimize teaching methodology, introducing multi-disciplinary curriculums and forming networks to share knowledge.

Malaysia is a former English colony, and it shows in the education system which is similar with the English education system. Teaching in Malaysian universities was (and still is) dominated by classroom lectures, textbooks and narrowly defined disciplines.

Interactive learning methodologies

The academic level of the education in Malaysia was quite high during the 1990’s when compared with countries with similar socio-economic development. However, only a small portion of students continued and enrolled to a postgraduate programme. This was partly because of structural reasons as a high demand of bachelors in the labor market. Another more immediate obstacle was the cost of studies and limited scholarship programmes.

An interactive approach to learning is a combination of theory and project work has proved to be a cost-effective teaching methodology at postgraduate level. So, it was found relevant to work with teaching methodologies as an input to capacity building at Malaysian universities.

Working in groups

One of the simplest initiatives was to have students work in groups. A straightforward initiative, but nevertheless foreign in the Malaysian education system at the time.

“Working in groups were simply something we had never heard of. By working in groups, you prepare people to work life – because in their professional future, they will be working with other people,” says Professor Dr. Zaini Ujang, at the time deputy director, at Institute of Environmental & Water Resource Management, UTM, and coordinator for MUCED at UTM.

In contrary to normal praxis in Denmark, where students form their own groups, the lecturers in Malaysia set up the groups. Given that the students had never practiced how to collaborate when studying, and maybe discover unknown resources in each other.

“The Malaysian education system is biased towards good students. Nobody wants to be associated with a bad group, so people work individually. With the courses we were breaking down these cultures,” Dr. Zaini Ujang explains.

Problem-based learning – the beginning

Around the millennium the teaching model Problem-Based Learning (PBL) had begun to get more attention. The main idea of PBL is that the learning process is generated when looking for solutions to real-world-problems, instead of theoretical problems in the classroom within one discipline. The students need to look at many aspects in society, including economy, biology, engineering, sociology, chemistry etc.

PBL as a method was something that both the universities in Aalborg (AAU) and Roskilde (RUC) had been exploring since the 1970´s. Also, Technical University of Denmark (DTU) had experiences with group work and particular cooperation with companies in need of research assistance. These experiences could be passed on to the involved institutes at Malaysian universities.

However, PBL started in Denmark as a bottom-up pressure. When implemented in Malaysia, it was sometimes perceived as the opposite – a top-down effort. This required enthusiastic local staff, who could advocate for a change in teaching style. And during MUCED there were groups established of very passionate lecturers, who wanted to introduce PBL to their colleagues and at their universities. But even so, engaging both staff and students was difficult.

“We wanted as many lecturers as possible to learn what we had learned. We made courses and we offered training, but lecturers just did not come. It is difficult to change people’s mind when they are used to do things in their own way. It takes a lot of time and effort. But we did start something,” says professor in organic chemistry Dr. Zuriati Zakaria. During MUCED she was the coordinator at UKM.

She is backed up by Professor Dr. Abdul Halim Sulaiman, who was the manager of MUCED. “Every time we had a workshop, we would be open and invite other lecturers. Some people were interested, some were not. PBL is a heavy teaching load compared to traditional teaching. It is very time consuming, and this requires recognition from the top management, who might be concerned with other administrative concern,” he adds.

Long-term effects

When asked about the effect now 20 years later, all Malaysian coordinators of MUCED admits that problem-based learning may not have become as common in Malaysia as hoped for. But it is present. The principles are integrated in the curriculum at some of the faculties in the four universities engaged in MUCED.

At the UTM a Center for Education of Engineers has been established, that focuses on learning and teaching styles in engineering. A driver for this has been Dr. Zaini Ujang, who since then was appointed as Vice Chancellor at UTM. Knowing the benefits of PBL established via MUCED, he engaged Dr. Khairiyah Mohd-Yusof as head of the center, who is world famous for her work on problem-based teaching and learning styles.

Course development and related research

During MUCED 12 teaching modules at master level based on case-studies was developed by local lecturers. Four obligatory and eight optional. The big benefit, except for the students, was that lecturers from different universities was engaged to develop this together.

“At the time there was an understanding that you should not interfere with other people’s work. So just like we wanted to train the students in group dynamics, we had to learn to collaborate instead of competing with our colleagues at other universities,” Dr. Zuriati tells.

Also, the interdisciplinarity was a new aspect. Malaysian education system is (like in most of the world) based on separated pillars of disciplines, and changes to this approach had not yet emerged in the country when MUCED was formed.

“For us it was really strange that DTU, a technical university had people in social science employed. But we were soon able to see the benefits of interdisciplinary approaches,” Dr. Halim notes.

The development of teaching modules helped to push interdisciplinarity into Malaysian higher education, even if just a drop in the ocean to begin with. General economic support to send Malaysian students abroad have slowly started to have an impact in Malaysian education towards more interaction between disciplines.

Real-world problems

One big challenge when doing research is to integrate the findings into the real world. Therefore, students are encouraged to collaborate with organizations and companies and thereby interact with society during the research process.

“When we formed MUCED, the main complaint was that we don’t train undergraduates in dealing with the industry. There was a gab. So, we could see that there should be better contact to the industry. When we did the projects, we realized that the bridging was important. So, whenever we made a curriculum, we invited industry to join and give their input,” Dr. Halim tells. Unengaged industry was and is frustrating to this day.

“There is still too little knowledge. Hardly any industries can, or will, answer questions about the environmental impact of their business. There is a lack of concern for environmental issues. I don’t know how to get through. We make courses, but they do not come. There is concern about the pollution you can see, but not the invisible pollution,” Dr. Zuriati persist.

It is something that is addressed by some faculties. Nowadays both UTM and UM have departments that have integrated obligatory lab-courses in the curriculum. Students have to collaborate with local enterprises to solve some of their real-life challenges. It is accepted that when doing applied sciences, skills in collaboration is a major advantage, for which the universities realizes more and more.

Bring science to the people

“The case-studies also made us aware that it is our duty as scientist to bring science to the people. I was very inspired by the Science-shop at RUC, that assigned students to solve a society problem. We need to engage the communities in order to solve environmental problems,” Dr. Zaini says.

Today he arranges trips for students at UTM to the Langat River bank to pick up the litter that manifest when the water level rises and falls. The students need to be aware of the problematic consequences of industry and consumption, and by informing the people, local communities can put more pressure towards changing into a greener reality.

So, capacity building? Has MUCED’s focus on problem-based learning and interdisciplinarity had a long-term effect? Yes, is the conclusion among the Malaysian coordinators. Maybe not as much as hoped, and maybe not as clear as audits prefer. But, nevertheless…

“Of course, we have seen capacity building. And we still benefit from what we learned so many years earlier. We have come out as experts in this field, and we know each other well. We still have contact with other universities, so we know who to call. It still makes an impact in our own field,” as Dr. Halim puts it.

Berit Viuf is a Danish science journalist; the interviews were conducted during a reporting trip to Malaysia and Thailand
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Dr. Abdul Halim Suleiman. Photo: Berit Viuf

Dr. Zuriati Zakaria. Photo: Berit Viuf

Photo: Berit Viuf

Malaysian University Consortium for Environment and Development – Industry & Urban Areas:
Universiti Malaya (UM) – the oldest public university in Malaysia. UM established the Centre of Environmental Studies and Management in 1995 to promote excellence in environmental studies. UM was appointed to act as secretariat for MUCED.

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) – The National University of Malaysia, located 35 km south of Kuala Lumpur offered a multidisciplinary postgrade environmental management programme and master degree programmes in environmental management.

Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) – originally Agricultural University of Malaysia. At the time existing master degree programmes were: Environmental technology management, environmental engineering, water engineering and environmental management.

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) – originally a technical college, but became a university in 1975 and now the main university for engineering in Malaysia. During MUCED, the university was offering following master degree programmes at four different faculties: environmental engineering, water resources, water pollution management, hydraulic and coastal engineering, and urban planning.

Spin-off projects

In 2002 to 2004 the project continued with funding from the EU. It was still supporting the mentioned activities, but to strengthen the collaboration and the teaching, funds were set aside to develop an e-learning platform. This platform which not only allowed lecturers and students to meet online for internet courses, but was also one of the first platforms for scholars to interact, communicate and share files and papers.

The e-learning platform – build on the open source management system Moodle – was a joint development project between the National University of Malaysia and Aalborg University. It is still used at Aalborg and at 90 percent of the Malaysian universities to this day.

In 2004 a new programme was created to implement problem-based methodologies in Latin America in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Mexico, based on the experiences with DUCED.

Malaysian University Consortium for Environment and Development – Industry & Urban Areas

Berit Viuf — Fri, 18 Dec 2020 16:00:07 +0000

MUCED started activities in 2001, 20 years ago. What do different participants in the programme think of it? Does it have any impact today? Has it changed their mindset or influenced their future career? We have asked different people involved in MUCED about their opinion and how it have influenced their life prospectively.

Prof Dr Maimon Abdullah. Biologist. During MUCED she was lecturer at the Faculty of Science and Technology at UKM. Today she is retired, but involved in NGO’s regarding land-use and agriculture

Our students need project-oriented case studies and interdisciplinarity

“We were young and the MUCED collaboration really opened our eyes. We saw that there was something to grasp, if you put out your hands. For most of us who participated, it made our career grow faster. But it also changed our mindset.

The network taught us so much. We saw what our counterparts in South Africa were doing when we met them at conferences and workshops. It inspired me, and otherwise I would probably have been trapped in a lab. But I realized that my data is actually out there in the field, and I am blessed that I do not need too much of expensive equipment.

It all comes with problem-based learning (PBL) and project-oriented case studies and these are what our students need. They need to integrate with other disciplines: the sociology, the economy, and the biology and chemistry.

After MUCED I continued teamwork with colleagues under Asia-Link, which referred to some of the same ideas. The problem-based approach also got me involved with other projects field-based like the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and farmer field schools, where field experts, academics and researchers collaborate with the rice farmers and local communities to share knowledge and local wisdom about natural farming and biodiversity conservation, such as seed saving, pest control, etc.

Farmers are scared to lose their subsidies if they do not follow the mainstream agenda of relying heavily on agricultural inputs such as agrochemicals. However, they provide the bounty of our breadbasket, and we need to empower them. So how can we empower them? Well, our students are our field commanders. When they go back to their original communities, they can change the mindset of their people with innovative ideas and knowledge to improve their livelihood. So we need to find students that will advocate for a healthy agriculture such as natural farming, permaculture and agroecology.

It is all about education, not only at the university level but in general and at all levels. So I help organizations to write school books to teach children about the basics, for example biodiversity and bio conservation, pollution control, energy saving, green and healthy lifestyle (e.g. reduce, reuse and recycling), caring for nature, etc.”.

Professor Salmijah Surif. Biochemist and toxicologist. During MUCED she was lecturer at the Faculty of Science and Technology at UKM in the School of Environmental and Natural Resource sciences. Today she is retired.

Beneficial to both countries

Mostly good things came out of MUCED. The grants able to invite lecturers for workshops, and that was a good experience because we could really see how other people work. We got new perspectives on environmental topics and environmental management. We heard about water footprints and carbon footprints. It opened you up to new things.

So we were able to upgrade ourselves, and to upgrade on content of our courses. Not only content, but also on how to run courses, because we were introduced to these new systems in Denmark and Europe. We also went to Europe to visit RUC, DTU and to the Netherlands.

The network continued after MUCED, because now we knew people from Thailand and Europe. It really put us together and made it possible for us to build up a new field that was completely new for us – the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). In our university we now got three lecturers in this area, but it takes many years to build up, but MUCED did help to speed up the process

The network we got has been extremely important. For instance, if I want to organize a conference, I can always ask in the community and find the right people to invite.

We had courses with Danish student coming to Malaysia and collaborate with the local students. It was only two weeks, and that was too short. It was very stressful, especially since we had our normal life and normal obligations. But having student from different cultures interact was useful.

The training courses we did with Malaysian lecturers were not as successful as we would have liked. It was difficult to attract lecturers to participate in the courses. We were enthusiastic about PBL and wanted as many lecturers as possible benefit from that, but most people did not understand the importance of problem-based methodologies. When you don’t understand, you don’t want to spend your time participating. You don’t want to do something different.

All in all I think MUCED was very beneficial to both countries. We were able to share experience and knowledge. If there is another chance of establishing this kind of project, it could be sustainable for many years.

Professor Dr. Nik Meriam Nik Sulaiman. Chemical engineer at Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering at University of Malaya (UM).

The principle of the modules are still used today

“What I appreciate most of the impact of MUCED is the opening up for internationalization. It introduced us to colleagues abroad and to international collaboration.

At that time, we had no contact with Danish tertiary institutions such as Aalborg and are new to problem-based learning approach, so it was very inspirational for us and our fellow countries in the network, Thailand and Southern Africa. It had a significant impact on our members, since we were still young and very enthusiastic. Later on, when MUCED was discontinued, we engaged with Japanese universities as well about problem-based learning. So, we continued the work.

I learned a lot, but I think the impact on MUCED is beyond personal development. It also had a great ripple effect, as I went on to mentor younger staff and share the methodologies.

I really like that case studies are a part of the project. This gives plenty of opportunities for collaboration beyond the classroom. And the knowledge on cleaner technology we developed back then is still going on – based on the same principles. It is written into the curriculum. We were engaged by a government agency to develop modules for cleaner production and auditing software for auditing industries.

I think the idea of embedding the industry sector has become more than protocol in academia today. It is especially important for small and medium-sized enterprises. The food & beverage, plastic industry, environmental services and so on, need a more multidisciplinary transformation.

You need to understand the perspectives of business in order to develop innovative technology. I keep telling my students that it is not a problem to earn money. But you need an ecosystem approach. A circular economy.

If I should give some recommendations for similar programmes like MUCED, I think it needs a full-time project manager. It was too time consuming for lecturers to spend the needed time for development of modules, fieldtrips and workshops in addition to the normal workload.”

Berit Viuf is a Danish science journalist; the interviews were conducted during a reporting trip to Malaysia and Thailand

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Dr. Maimon Abdullah

Dr. Nik Meriam Nik Sulaiman

Spin-off projects

In 2002 to 2004 the project continued with funding from the EU. It was still supporting the core activities, but to strengthen the collaboration and the teaching, funds were set aside to develop an e-learning platform. This not only allowed lecturers and students to meet online for internet courses, but it was also one of the first platforms for scholars to interact, communicate and share papers.

In 2004 a new programme was created to implement problem-based methodologies in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Mexico, based on the DUCED experiences.

“MUCED should have been more ambitious”, says former MUCED coordinator Randolph S. Jeremiah

Berit Viuf — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 09:55:37 +0000

In August 2000, MUCED Industry & Urban Areas, a consortium of four Malaysian universities, was formed to encourage new interdisciplinary approaches to environmental management. The consortium was part of a project proposed and supported by the DANCED program of the Danish Ministry of Environment and Energy. Randolph S. Jeremiah became the Coordinator in the Secretariat of MUCED. In this interview he points to some of the key experiences. Today, Randolph works as Head of Water Resources at ERE, a Malaysian consultant company.

“I was employed at the University Malaya (UM). When the MUCED secretariat was formed at the Center of Environmental Studies & Management at UM, I became a staff member. We arranged the curriculum development, training of lecturers and student exchange programmes. I had to do practical planning, for example identifying supervisors in the MUCED network.

We developed 12 modules for LCA (Life Cycles Analysis), water pollution, air pollution and so on. They were developed through workshops – probably something that was never done before in Malaysia. Normally the universities develop their curriculum’s alone, but in MUCED the objective was to collaborate and share knowledge. Few such platforms existed before this. To develop a module, the lecturers would have to participate in several workshops of 2-3 days. This was both Malaysian and Danish lecturers, and it was obvious that the Danes had more experienced in multidisciplinary teaching methods.

Education systems in Malaysia was – and is – still traditional, where the subjects are separate, so it was a big change and there was definitely a gap. The potential was very high, the whole educational system could have changed. We learned a lot and it could have been implemented more but is required commitment from the management at the universities. We also did training of lecturers to integrate PBL in their teaching. It was difficult too. It is not enough that the teachers get a course, if they are not able to use what they learned in their daily practice.

Another part of our work was to facilitate field courses for students. We had 40 students at a time at 2-3 weeks courses, who were divided into groups, so Malaysian and Danish student would work together. Here you really saw some cultural differences.

People believe that Malaysian students are quiet and don’t ask questions. But the reason is, that the environment doesn’t support questions. The courses really showed that. In the end of the course, the groups had to present their field studies, and every time a group ended a presentation, you saw many hands coming up. That doesn’t happen in normal lectures in Malaysia. It was a very good experience. I would like to see that in every classroom.

MUCED should have been more ambitious. Of course, we were all new, and you learn by doing. But what could have been done differently was to allocate more staff. It was a lot of extra work for lecturers who also had to do their research and normal tasks. I could see a lot of potential. It is in the process: You face problems, you find solutions and you engage. I have seen students change from zombies to become very intellectual adults.

What could have done differently was to combine courses. You need more than one course for PBL to really work it out. That way you can really demonstrate the merits and bring it up to the management. Just do it. You don’t have to establish the whole system at once. You can do it yourself and speak to your colleagues.”

Malaysian University Consortium for Environment and Development – Industry & Urban Areas:
Universiti Malaya (UM) – the oldest public university in Malaysia. UM established the Centre of Environmental Studies and Management in 1995 to promote excellence in environmental studies. UM was appointed to act as secretariat for MUCED.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) – The National University of Malaysia, located 35 km south of Kuala Lumpur offered a multidisciplinary postgrade environmental management programme and master degree programmes in environmental management.
Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) – originally Agricultural University of Malaysia. At the time existing master degree programmes were: Environmental technology management, environmental engineering, water engineering and environmental management.
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) – originally a technical college, but became a university in 1975 and now the main university for engineering in Malaysia. During MUCED, the university was offering following master degree programmes at four different faculties: environmental engineering, water resources, water pollution management, hydraulic and coastal engineering, and urban planning.

Berit Viuf is a Danish science journalist; the interview was conducted during a reporting trip to Malaysia and Thailand

SUPPORT DDRN SCIENCE JOURNALISM. DONATE DKK 20 OR MORE(APPLICABLE IN DENMARK ONLY)

Randolph S. Jeremiah

Randolph S. Jeremiah

MUCED: Personal development, educational development at universities and practical environmental development in the Malaysian society

Berit Viuf — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 11:34:23 +0000

One of the first Malaysian students to benefit from the MUCED programme was professor Suhaimi Abdul Talib. In 2001 he went to Denmark to work on his Ph.D. project Anoxic transformations of wastewater organic matter in sewers – process kinetics, model concept and wastewater treatment potential. During two periods of three months, he had his day-to-day work in the laboratories of Institute of Environmental Engineering at Aalborg University.

Now, almost 20 years later, it is his strong belief, that the time in Denmark has paid off.

“The impact of the DUCED-MUCED programme was quite successful, I think. It had impact on the receiving countries in terms of capacity building. I think it helped me a lot to be exposed to this programme, not so much the technical Ph.D. guidance but by making a Danish network accessible,” Suhaimi Talib says.

It was not the first time, that he went abroad. He had studied in Australia and got his master in the UK. But meeting his Danish supervisor, biochemical engineer Thorkild Hvidfeldt-Jacobsen, who at the time was well-known for his work on processes in water management, opened new doors and new paradigms in water waste management for the Malaysian student.

Later on, Suhaimi Talib’s own students would also benefit, as they too could dig into his international network and contact foreign experts to share problems and solutions in the wastewater management field.

Personal benefits rubs off on society

When asked Suhaimi Talib sees the benefit in various ways, both directly and indirectly.

Firstly, it helped him personally in his career. Getting international experience made him confident to set up new networks and to bid for bigger projects. After achieving a position as professor at the Faculty of Civil Engineering, UiTM (Universiti Teknologi Mara), in 2004, he was appointed dean of the faculty, and later on deputy vice-chancellor at UiTM.

Secondly, he got access to European network, which made him start new initiatives in his home country. Inspired by the European Junior Scientific Workshop, where master and Ph.D. students gather to discuss their work, he helped organize the first Asian Junior Scientist Workshop in Malacca (Malaysia).

“We had students coming from all over: Germany, from Spain, from Denmark and from Japan to join that workshop,” he tells, and highlights that the AJSW is still going on every year to this day.

Thirdly, he was introduced to Problem-Based Learning at Aalborg University, and this teaching method he brought back home.

“In Denmark I was not only looking at my research, I was also looking at how they conducted the classes. They were using this concept of PBL, and I picked that up, and that has somehow influenced my teaching as well. So my teaching has moved from having a main aim of content delivery, into content delivery due to more practical exposure,” he explains.

When he was appointed as dean at the faculty, he could emphasize teaching methods even more.

“UiTM is a teaching university, yet our promotion criteria is based on the same criteria as research universities. You’ve got to write papers. So the changes that I made was in the teaching track. If they (lecturers) can come up with innovated assessments or innovated delivering methods, that is equivalent to a scientific paper, provided that they document it and publish it in a journal,” he explains.

Influence on Malaysian sewage system

Furthermore, the DUCED-MUCED network indirectly helped to speed up a paradigm change in Malaysian sewage engineering.

A remarkable result of his Ph.D. project was, when he discovered, that the denitrification process was not as simple as assumed. A paper from 1940’s had described how nitrate in wastewater is broken directly to nitrogen when exposed to certain bacteria, and this knowledge formed the base for wastewater treatment plants at the time. But in his research, Suhaimi Talib found, that the nitrate does not break down completely. It goes through a cycle where nitrate is broken down to nitrite, and then the nitrite breaks down to nitrogen.

For the uninitiated this may sound like a detail. But the cycle has great impact on how waste water engineers build their models for the treatment plants and sewage systems. In its essence, the treatment of wastewater start in the kitchen sink, and is vulnerable to the process during the transportation from household, to treatment plant and back to nature.

The bioprocesses of the local chemical composition and temperature is simply crucial for the efficiency of the treatment, so the more knowledge about the exact biological decomposing inside the pipes, the treatment plant and in the surrounding nature the better.

Knowledge like this was not only beneficial internationally but has also made an impact in Malaysia. Suhaimi Talib and his advisor Zaini Ujang from the University of Technology, Malaysia, have during their careers both been involved with IWK, Malaysia’s national sewage company, giving advice on the development of sewage systems in Malaysia. This helped changing the mindset of how to look at wastewater management.

“It changed from design based on physical parameters like slow gradient velocity and retention time into looking at a better understanding of the microbiology and biochemistry in the processes,” Suhaimi Talib explains.

Did not want to be a shadow

It was a coincidence that Suhaimi Talib became an engineer. But it was no random choice to specialize in sewage systems.

“When I looked at the faculty and, in the water and wastewater department, there were already professors in area of the waste water engineering, and they were focusing their research on the treatment in the treatment plant. So, if I went into that area, I would forever be a shadow, until I retired. So that’s when I decided that I had to do something different,” he tells.

So, he started looking into the transport of wastewater and came across the work of Hvidfeldt-Jacobsens and his group. He noticed that not many people in the world was looking at sewage as a bioreactor, and by that he had found his area.

“In terms of knowledge, it is the same as that in the treatment plant, but the parameters are different. So, I found that interesting, and after discussing with Zaini Ujang, we decided that it would be a good area to pursue,” he explains.

Capacity building is about the right topics at the right time

By that he has come to a key point, when discussing capacity building. When doing programmes with the aim of encouraging research that can be beneficial to local societies, it is important to pick staff and students with motivation for change and to select topics that will have a real impact. And this relies on the supervisors.

“Zaini Ujang knew the value of collaboration, and he picked me to do it. Now I know the value of the collaboration. If I want to recommend something, I will know how to pick a good candidate to go on this sort of collaboration,” Suhaimi Talib states.

Berit Viuf is a Danish science journalist; the interview was conducted during a reporting trip to Malaysia and Thailand

Director of DUCED, Niels Thygesen: ‘A well-functioning educational sector is the key to development’

Berit Viuf — Sun, 07 Jun 2020 19:07:40 +0000

What is the impact of development aid on longer terms? In some areas, it is easy to document whether initiated activities have made an effect or not. The health benefits when a village gets sanitation. The economic leeway following micro investments. The decline in the mortality rate in an area after a vaccination programme.

When it comes to capacity building in higher education systems, it is much harder to show direct evidence of the development effect in society.

That is the point of Director of DUCED I&UA Niels Thygesen. Nevertheless, when asked, he has no doubt that the effect of the DUCED/LUCED programme was massive in the targeted countries. The initiatives implemented almost 20 years ago have rubbed off even to this day.

“It’s quite extraordinary that something that started in 2001 still has an effect. The activities set up back then continues in some ways. But of course, it can be difficult to see, even for the participants themselves,” Niels Thygesen ponders.

The DUCED programme was in essence a collaboration programme among five Danish universities andUniversity Consortia in Malaysia (MUCED), South Africa (SACUDE) and Thailand (TUCED). The main aim was to work on new teaching methods, that had proved effective in Scandinavia based on methodologies like problem-based learning (PBL).

“Most of the world’s education systems, and especially in developing countries, are based on blue sky science and command teaching. We wanted to introduce a teaching style, where students had to go out, and try to solve real existing problems. One of the big challenges were to introduce these methodologies around the world,” Niels Thygesen explains.

The programme had three legs:

Exchange of bachelor and master students from Denmark to the South and vice versa.
Development of problem-based master programme at the participating universities.
Capacity building of lecturers in PBL and interdisciplinary approaches.

The structure was decentral. Every programme had its own budget and could administer the funds according to the local planning. Therefore, the activities differed slightly from country to country.

Student exchange

In order to develop and share technology and management systems in environmental planning, the local conditions have to be part of the problem solving. In DUCED, the philosophy was, that scientists need not to sit behind a desk and give theoretical advice. They need to get their hands dirty. During the programme, 60 Danish students went abroad each semester, to study with professors at the local universities under joint supervision. Also, field trips were arranged for both staff and students in all the countries.

A number of students were going the opposite direction and made their master thesis in Denmark. The difference was that the foreign students brought local challenges with them, to learn from experiences in Denmark in certain areas such as waste management, chemical engineering, and comparative environmental impact assessment.

The effect for the students would ideally be a move towards a more holistic understanding of how to solve a task rather than just minding the technical aspects. The hope was, that this mindset would trickle down in the educational system and eventually into the society.

“With so many students going through, some will obviously go to the public sector, some to private business communities and some into research, but the main point is, that they would be more management oriented instead of just technical,” Niels Thygesen explains.

Master programmes

In each country one or two master programmes was created. These were made as a collaboration between the Danish universities and the universities in the respective countries. Lecturers from different faculties met up to discuss how to secure multidisciplinary approach needed for problem-solving oriented teaching. In the targeted countries, interdisciplinary collaboration was quite unusual at the time

“The master programmes made during the programme contained curriculums, which had to be approved, first by the universities and later on the Ministry of Education. So it was a very formalized approval process, and it is obvious, that it will have a tremendous effect in countries, where the norm is very rigorous courses where people sit in class without any field work. Especially since developed curricula will last for a minimum of 10 years, where master students will continuously be produced,” Niels Thygesen states.

“Also, the development of master programs had the effect of encouraging teachers to collaborate, and create valuable networks,” he continues.

Capacity building of lecturers

Finally lecturers at the universities was trained in PBL. This was an important aspect to integrate problem-oriented approaches in the curriculums and in future teaching. An important vehicle was to develop professional training courses targeting the public and private sector introducing PBL and interdisciplinary approaches.

“We saw that these training courses were adopted by the local universities and they were able to make a business offering training,” Niels Thygesen says. In addition, the private and public sector participants often offered students from the master programs to be a case in their project work.

A change in development strategy

In 2004 the DUCED programme and other programmes on higher education expired. DANIDA changed the strategy towards a more focus on poverty reduction and support to agricultural development. It is the impression of Niels Thygesen that there was a fear that the exchange of students and staff would lead to brain drain in the developing countries, and this is one of the reasons, that the Danish government shifted focus to support production on behalf of education. An unfortunate decision in his opinion.

”If you ensure a well-functioning education sector, also at university level, it will trickle down. But it is hard to see a direct effect. But it is striking, that almost all the participating lecturers in the developing countries became professors. They have all been able to influence the research institutions they worked at afterwards,” Niels Thygesen emphasizes.

He does regret though, that the results of the programme was not documented better. Both because the benefits might have come out clearer and because a lot of the obtained experiences is not accessible for the following generation of scientists to pick up.

The structure of the organization made it hard, though. Every consortium had its own budget and the support was given directly to the universities making a coordination of efforts difficult. So, everything was organized in a decentralized manner. As all four university consortia consisted of approximately five universities each, and as every university with two to four faculties involved, it was a spider’s web of involved partners, who all report back to their own units.

“Academics are not trained to evaluate. Maybe we should have earmarked a portion for an external audit at the projects to get an overall evaluation of the impact,” Niels Thygesen says.

Spin-off projects

In 2004 a new programme was created to implement problem-based methodologies in Latin America in Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Mexico, based on the experiences with DUCED.

Berit Viuf is a Danish science journalist; the interview was conducted following a reporting trip to Malaysia and Thailand

Niels Thygesen

Danish University Consortium for Education and Development – Industry & Urban Areas

In 1998 DUCED, a consortium of five Danish universities was established by DANCED (Danish Co-operation for Environment and Development, Ministry of Environment & Energy), in order to work on capacity building to enhance sustainable development in Denmark and other parts of the world.

Capacity building was a buzz word at the time. The concept aimed to help developing countries to be able to solve and prevent environmental problems by themselves. Quite a challenge in countries that struggled to obtain and continue economic growth, and as a consequence tended to override environment considerations.

The idea of capacity building in DUCED was to build competences by supporting higher education, and it split out in two programmes: DUCED-SLUSE (Sustainable Land Use), and DUCED I&UA (Industry and Urban Areas). This article describes the experiences with DUCED I&UA.

Establishment of international consortia and networks

During the first years, DUCED involved planning and preparation of how to secure capacity building in higher education. For example by developing courses at Danish universities, to provide basis for training of Danish students in developing countries.

After these first initiatives, the project went into the consolidation phase, and in 2001 three consortia was created in Malaysia (MUCED), Southern Africa (SAUCED) and Thailand (TUCED). Each consortium consisted of four to six national universities, and each university had several faculties associated. The four consortia went under the name LUCED (Linked University Consortium for Education and Development) and was targeted capacity building by educating academic staff and students in environmental management.

Six key research themes were selected, in order to address the urgent environmental challenges the targeted Asian and African countries faced due to fast urban growth and expanding industry.

Water resource management in industrial and urban areas
Chemical assessment of the environment
Resource recycling in industries and urban areas
Comparative environmental impact assessment
Planning and public participation of environmental projects
Environmental management

Different networks of academics from the participating universities was formed around these six research areas.

Problem-based methodologies and intercultural experiences

The educational activities focused on problem-based methodologies and training of staff. They included:

traineeships and field studies for students (TFS programme)
joint field courses for Danish/local students
development of new curriculum for one or two master programme in each consortium and faculty training
collaborating research projects among lecturers and Ph.D. students

The core of all activities was to introduce problem-based methodologies in order to challenge the traditional classroom education and strengthen intercultural knowledge and multidisciplinary research.

“I benefitted so much” – experiences from TUCED

Berit Viuf — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 10:52:51 +0000

In the beginning of the 21^st century, the TUCED programme initiated exchange programmes for Danish and Thai master students. To Warisara Sereewatthanachai it meant that she could help bring new methods for substance analysis into the private sector in Thailand.

In 2002 students from three Thailand Universities was offered a scholarship to do their master thesis in a university in Denmark.

One of them was Warisara Sereewatthanachai, who was a student at Prince of Songkhla University at the Department of Environmental Management. In 2002 her supervisors, Professor Chatchai Ratanachai and Professor Penjai Sompongchaiyakul encouraged her to apply for one of the grants, and from that things went fast, and she soon found herself in a plane towards Copenhagen. The following five months, she worked on her master thesis at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).

“It was a great opportunity. Not only the studies, but for my life in general,” she tells in her car in one of the main streets in Hat Yai, the most significant commercial center in the southern region of Thailand, where the interview takes place.

Cadmium and phosphorous flow in agricultural land

Her thesis focused on environmental analytical approaches to provide information for sustainable use of substances at a regional level. To do this, she did a Substance Flux Analysis (SFA) to account materials, resource use, accumulation and loss in a geographic region at a specific year. This can be an essential input for risk assessment framework.

A heavy metal, cadmium was selected, and used as an illustrative case study in a system boundary of Songkhla Lake Basin. The main finding of the SFA study showed that most of the cadmium in the environment was a direct result of human activities and also the use of phosphate fertilizers that can contaminate the agricultural soils.

“I took soil samples from the agricultural land at the Songkhla Lake Basin to the laboratory in DTU. Then the laboratory technician who came from the same university as me, checked the levels of phosphorous and cadmium in the soil samples, as part of her project, and I could use the results for my analysis,” Warisara Sereewatthanachai explains.

Cadmium is a toxic metal that will accumulate in the human body, especially in the kidneys. It can be damaging to various organisms and plants. It is no surprise, that the content of cadmium stored in the soil is an important parameter when considering agricultural use.

Phosphorous is accumulated in wastewater from urban areas. It important for plants metabolism and accordingly for the growth of the crops. However, too much phosphorous is bound to the soil, may influence the surroundings negatively. In the case of Songkhla Lake Basin, an overflow could cause algae growth and subsequently a lack of oxygen in the lakes. Therefore, the flow of supply and discharge of phosphorous in agricultural soil must be balanced.

At the time being, there was not many measurements of the levels of cadmium and phosphorus in the soils of Southern Thailand, so first step was to determine whether or not there was an accumulated presence of these two elements in the soil.

“My findings were that there was an accumulation of phosphorous and cadmium in the area around Songkhla Lake Basin,” Warisara Sereewatthanachai tells.

However, another finding was that the soils of Songkhla Lake Basin are acidic, which means that the mobility of cadmium in the soil is high. In other words, if the discharge of cadmium on the farmland is high, it will not accumulate in the soil, but is likely to rapidly be absorbed by the crops. This must be considered when using organic waste as fertilizer.

Foreign experience an advantage

Most Thai students are going to the US or England. But grabbing the chance of doing something different than the majority, especially getting experience from a country that was known as very environmentally conscious, did give her new insight in environmental planning, and on personal level, it had an effect on her career, Warisara Sereewatthanachai thinks.

“I benefitted so much from this project. For example, when I applied for my first job. I could utilize the experience and it gave me a good firsthand opportunity. Even though my work was not related to my background or my thesis, I could adapt the method for my work. My first job was about system approaches on the ISO requirements. I could take the concept of mass balance, the process of input/output, and apply that to my job.”

Today she works in the company Trans Thai-Malaysia which is the joint venture company between Thailand and Malaysia for natural gas transportation and separation plant. At the time of interview, she had just rotated from strategic planning to a new function, as internal audit & compliance.

Different learning styles

The scholarship offered to Warisara Sereewatthanachai was part of an exchange programme in the consortium TUCED/DUCED (Thai/Danish University Consortium on Environment and Development). The exchange of students was as a part of the capacity building in Southern Asia emphasizing research and education in environmental management in urban areas.

One of the aims was to introduce different learning styles and multidisciplinary approaches and to support networking activities. The programme was mainly set up as inspiration for lecturers and professors, but the input from students have been an important part of the capacity building.

When asked, Warisara Sereewatthanachai was quite fond of the way teaching was done at DTU during her stay.

“In Denmark they (the students) are learning by themselves. They (the lecturers) gave some advice, and we had to find the solution by ourselves. When we got our results, we did not just get a yes or no, but had to recheck ourselves. I loved it so much,” she says.

Berit Viuf is a Danish science journalist; the interview was conducted during a reporting trip to Malaysia and Thailand

The idea if capacity building in DUCED was to build competences by supporting higher education, and it split out in two programmes: DUCED-SLUSE (Sustainable Land Use), and DUCED I&UA (Industry and Urban Areas).

During the first years, DUCED (Industry and Urban Areas) involved planning and preparation of how to secure capacity building in higher education. For example by developing courses at Danish universities, to provide basis for training of Danish students in developing countries.

After these first initiatives, the project went into the consolidation phase, and in 2001 three consortia was created in Malaysia (MUCED), Southern Africa (SAUCED) and Thailand (TUCED). Each consortium consisted of four to six national universities, and each university had several faculties associated. The four consortia went under the name LUCED (Linked University Consortium for Environment and Development) and was targeted capacity building by educating academic staff and students in environmental management.

Six key research themes were selected, in order to address the urgent environmental challenges the targeted Asian and African countries faced due to fast urban growth and expanding industry.

Water resource management in industrial and urban areas
Chemical assessment of the environment
Resource recycling in industries and urban areas
Comparative environmental impact assessment
Planning and public participation of environmental projects
Environmental management

Different networks of academics from the participating universities was formed around these six research areas.

“We need to spread our knowledge”

Berit Viuf — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 15:29:15 +0000

Dr. Firdaus Yusoff came to Denmark to study the biofuel process. He left with much more than just academic achievements. The stay in a foreign country sparked his scientific curiosity and convinced him to emphasize that scientists need to serve the public by sharing results and knowledge.

“When I went to Denmark, it was already autumn, so the first thing I had to face was the bad weather. It was so cold. But I enjoyed the scenery of falling leaves, and now autumn is my favorite season in Denmark,” he recalls.

From 2012 to 2015 he did his Ph.D. project on biofuel processing at Aarhus University at the department of Molecular Biology and Genetics. Despite the challenges of arriving to a physical cold and dark country, he found his way to enjoy the surrounding as much as the academic work.

“At the National University in Malaysia I did research on oil and fat. And one of the niches in oil chemistry is biofuel. At that time, biofuel was a very hot topic,” Dr. Yusoff explains.

Since Aarhus University had funding for several research projects in biofuel at that time, a spot was opened for the Malaysian chemist, who was supervised by professor Zheng Guo (chemical engineering) and professor Sergey Fedosov (enzymes).

Enzymes – a new hope for biofuel

When chemically transforming plant oil into biodiesel the fatty acids in the oil must be converted into esters (chemical compounds). To start and/or to speed up the chemical process, catalysts are needed. In the case of biofuel, it will normally be a well-known chemical catalyst such as H2SO4 or NaOH that is used.

Studies have shown that using enzymes (proteins) as catalysts can secure higher yields and rates. Therefore, the industry could potentially benefit if using enzymes instead of chemicals.

However, enzyme catalysts are expensive and sensitive when compared to chemical catalysts which are very robust and can be produced cheaply and in large quantities. So the Ph.D study done by Dr. Yusoff was aimed to develop a mathematical model for biodiesel production when using an enzyme called Callera Trans L (CTL).

“The first part was to investigate a kinetic model for the enzyme. We had the enzyme provided from Novozymes, and then we studied the characteristics of that enzyme. We found out the parameters, the limiting parameters for the action and so on. And then finally I combined all these characteristics, and I came out with the kinetic model.” Dr. Yusoff explains.

Enzyme kinetics addresses the chemical reactions that happen when an enzyme is interacting with a compound (it is not to be confused with thermodynamic kinetics). The rate and reaction time are important factors in order to plan a production, so a mathematical model of how fast the enzyme will react in different concentrations is very much needed.

More than one project

Normally a Ph.D. is assigned for three years of study. But already after two years, Dr. Yusoff could conclude, that the reaction rate of CTL indicated that a reasonable reaction could be obtained with very small amounts. The enzyme had potential to replace the cheaper chemical catalysts.

Completing and defending his thesis early, meant that Dr. Yusoff had more than a year left in Denmark before it would be time to return to Malaysia, so he started up on a new project at a the Department of Engineering, developing a new heterogenous chemical catalyst – a type of catalyst that can be reused, as it does not dissolve in the process.

However, he didn’t have time left to accomplish all the work on the project, so a colleague in his group at Aarhus University completed the final tests.

Getting out of the comfort zone

Any person coming to a new country will need time to adjust. Finding proper housing, adjusting to the diet and figuring out how to get around. It is exhausting but cannot be avoided. However, this is the case for all foreign students, and Dr. Yusoff found himself in a very international group of Ph.D. students from Italy, China, India and African countries.

“The journey in Denmark changed me to a better person. Before this I was surrounded with comfort. In my own country I was only among my own people, and suddenly this changed. I was meeting people and was outside my comfort zone. At first it was very challenging, but it was worth it. It made me a better speaker. I got more outspoken, better to express feelings and to express opinions, because I believe in Denmark there is free thinking. So, you are free to speak about your opinion and beliefs. So did it change me? Yes, definitely. I got more curious. I want to discover more,” Dr. Yusoff tells.

New teaching methods

Before going to Denmark, Dr. Yusoff taught five years at UKM. In Denmark he also had obligations to teach, and this changed his teaching method.

“I love to teach the students. I also love to supervise them and guide them and let them learn more about science. I try to incorporate what I learned in Denmark, into my teaching here in Malaysia. But of course, students in Denmark are different than students in Malaysia. I try to assimilate both kinds of teaching and come out with a new kind of teaching.”

This involves more interactive teaching using videos instead of books. The students must present and retell the rest of the class about their understandings and results and this encourages them to understand the course much better than when just reading and writing assignments.

“By doing this, they have actually interacted. This is what I learned in Denmark, so I’m trying to integrate it in Malaysia,” Dr. Yusoff explains.

Malaysian palm oil industry

“Our palm oil production in Malaysia has become a very huge commodity for this country. So, we try to find alternative, to use the source of palm oil to become valuated products. And not just normal palm oil, because palm oil is used for food consumption. So, we want do something on the waste of palm oil. Specifically, from this waste product called palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD),” …

This involves development of new catalysts that will work on this kind of compound, so while in Denmark Dr. Yusoff did his first testing of catalysts on PFAD.

This work has continued since he returned to UKM.

“Right now, I’m doing a modification of oils and fats, still on palm production distillate. And I’m also doing some work with starch from some kind of rhizome, like potatoes and cassava,” he explains.

We need to spread knowledge

Also, he wants to build a pilot plant to upscale from lab to industry.

“At UKM we have the attention build do our own pilot plant, because I have seen this pilot plant in Denmark, and I think it is possible for us to do it. We have a place; we just need to find money for it. A pilot plant is still based on research, so we can try to change the crude oil, the dirty oil, into something pure in big quantities,” Dr. Yusoff states.

This probably require some foreign partners in the industry, so it is a long-term goal.

The cut between research and industry is something that motivates the Malaysian scientist.

“I like meeting other people from companies that are trying to find solutions to their problems. That is something that excites me. They are seeking for someone that have specialties to solve their problems. And we are here. I’m here. They can always come and see me and ask me about how to solve their problem.”

He is currently working on a project on a better solution for a company that sells multipurpose cleaners and needs better surfactants, which involves research in fatty acids.

“In this way we are making an agreement with the company, so that both parties will benefit from this. We are really excited to see for more this kind of relationship with the industrial part. Because there’s no point in just learning and keep the knowledge too our self. We need to spread it to people, to consumers, so that the consumers can have a benefit. That is actually the main goal of learning something.”

Berit Viuf is a Danish science journalist; the interview was conducted during a reporting trip to Malaysia and Thailand

Berit Viuf

“I want to give back what I learned to our society”

Berit Viuf — Sat, 26 Oct 2019 14:20:32 +0000

When Dr. Norazana Ibrahim did her Ph.D. project at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), she could confirm that agricultural waste should be an important energy resource in Malaysia. Now comes the difficult part of commercializing the technology in the Malaysian waste management industries.

In June 2010 a baby boy was born three weeks early at Hillerød Hospital in Denmark. Babies are born at this hospital every day, but in this case, his mother was the Malaysian Ph.D. student Norazana Ibrahim, who had to take a break from her PhD research to deliver a baby. Everything went fine. But:

“My studies was delayed a little bit,” Dr. Norazana says, as she sits in the dean’s meeting room at the Faculty of Chemical and Energy Engineering at UTM in Johor, Malaysia, where she now works as a senior lecturer and scientist.

About six months later she had another delivery, when she turned in her Ph.D. thesis Bio-oil from Flash Pyrolysis of Agricultural Residues.

DTU by coincidence

In 2007 both she and husband decided to do their PhD’s abroad. At that time, the Malaysian government encouraged students in engineering to go abroad to study and offered scholarships to PhD students. The couple had their mind set on Australia or England, but was open to other possibilities. They were already parents to a toddler, so one criteria was very important.

“Because we had a kid, we could not do our PhD in separate countries, so we needed to find a place with courses for both me and for my husband. And luckily we found that DTU was the one that best met our criteria,” Dr. Norazana explains.

Finding out about DTU was actually quite a coincidence. A professor from DTU was visiting UTM and gave some talks. His subject was very relevant to Dr. Ibrahim’s husband. At that point the two did not know much about Denmark and the Danish research environment. But it sounded like the perfect place for both of them, and after discussions with the head of the department at UTM, they decided to go.

There were no formal exchange programmes between UTM and DTU at the time, so the couple had to find out everything about admission and practical details from scratch. Dr. Norazana contacted the Danish professor Kim Dam-Johansen who could potentially become her supervisor, and after a while everything was settled. By that, they left Malaysia for almost four years.

Agricultural waste has great value as energy

Norazana Ibrahim’s Ph.D. project was about converting agricultural waste into biofuel by thermal methods. In this case by using a flash pyrolysis centrifugal reactor (PCR). (Read about husband Mohd. Kamaruddin and his research Model-Based Integrated Process Design and Controller Design of Chemical Processes).

This is a process where agricultural residues as straw, wood and husk is heated under high pressures and the outcome is products as biochar, biooil and biogas. The output depends on the biological composition of the waste, and because of that it differs what product would be more beneficial to produce depending on what kind of waste is used.

The research made by Dr. Norazana was to determine how the process of transforming three different types of bio waste: wheat straw, wood and rice husk could be designed to get the best output. This by using flash pyrolysis techniques in a rotating reactor.

When designing waste combustion plants it is very important to customize the process to type of waste that will be the main feedstock in order to obtain the highest output. And vice versa, if a specific output is needed, it is important to know what kind of waste will be optimal.

“Agricultural waste contains a lot of ashes compared to wood. For example, if our target is liquid oil, I will suggest you to go for wood waste because it contains less ashes and has more cellulose content in wood as compared to agriculture,” Dr. Norazana says.

Wheat straw and wood are bio-waste that is common in Denmark. But to be able to investigate how typical Malaysian bio-waste would perform, Dr. Norazana also experimented with rice husk, which she had sent from Malaysia.

“I managed to post about ten kilos, and that was enough for my study. I could compare the products. Each type of biomass has different characteristics, and that will affect your product yield.”

When going abroad, students as Dr. Norazana have to consider how to benefit scientifically from the scholarship. In this case, the experiments with pyrolysis could not have taken place in Malaysia.

“We had these kind of facilities on lab scale, but during that time, we didn’t have it on pilot scale. So it was a good chance for me,” she says.

Bringing new technology to Malaysia

Malaysia has a lot of agriculture which of course result in a lot of agricultural waste. Besides rice, especially the palm oil industry produces a lot of waste. Malaysia has the second largest export of palm oil in the world, and in almost any corner of the country, you will find a plantation nearby. A lot of the waste products as leaves, rind and shells are not reused, but is placed on landfills or simply burned.

However, the waste could be reused as energy sources. Dr. Norazana is convinced, that high temperature combustion is an important way to convert biological waste in the future.

“Nowadays most countries, especially developing countries, really depend on fossil fuel. The consumption gives a tremendous effect on the environment because of the emissions. Plant waste is an alternative that can replace coal and fossil oil, and we have many methods to convert waste into suitable products. I prefer the thermal chemical method, since it is a fast method to convert waste or any solid waste into bio fuel. As compared to biochemical methods which involve enzymes, yeast and bacteria, which is time consuming,” Dr. Norazana says.

After her return in 2010, Dr. Norazana started to collaborate with other lecturers at UTM to apply for funding and exhibit the research on thermal combustion to the Malaysian waste management industries. Based on her studies in Denmark, she could demonstrate at least three useful products that could come from palm oil waste: biochar, biooil and fertilizer.

“I think the response was very good. But the obstacle is how to commercialize the products, that is the difficult part,” Dr. Norazana says.

“It starts with building the first plant. You need a lot of effort and you need a lot of support, and then you need a lot of capital from the government. If you depend on the university alone, you cannot go anywhere,” she says.

To convince the industry she needs to expand her research from lab scale to pilot scale, so products can be demonstrated on an industrial level. This is the only that way, the industry will be interested in investments in waste energy plants, Dr. Norazana claims.

“It’s not easy to transform from scale to scale. A lot of unexpected incidences can happen, and you need to face certain challenges to troubleshoot when you transfer from small scale to pilot scale. The university can provide the fundamentals. But in order to commercialize, you need capital: you need governmental support,” she says.

She has hope that continuous collaboration with Scandinavian countries can help the process.

“I do have relationship with Sweden and Denmark, because they already started with this technology, and it shows that you can do this. Provided the financing and that the government support us“.

A golden opportunity

The first year in Denmark the couple struggled due to lack of allowances which made it hard to cover living expenses (after a year, the allowances was revised to cover them both). And as anybody who travels overseas knows, it takes a lot of energy to understand the systems and the behavior of a foreign culture. Dr. Norazana had to delay her registration at the university, to wait for her kid could be enrolled in a kindergarten. And her first experiments did not go well, and she had to repeat them.

“The first year was quite heavy. I almost gave up and wanted to go back to Malaysia. But after that everything became good. I could give more efforts to my studies and still have more time with my family. As long as you complete eight hours a day on average, you can decide when to work. The work ethics is based on trust, and I think that is very important,” Dr. Norazana says.

Today she is grateful that the government supported her and her husband’s stay at a university abroad, and calls it a golden opportunity. She is more than ready to pay back for that investment, and to help her country to develop rural areas.

“I have to give whatever knowledge I got from Denmark back to our society,” Dr. Norazana affirms with a determined smile.

Berit Viuf is a Danish science journalist; the interview was conducted during a reporting trip to Malaysia and Thailand

From left to right: Former Vice Chansellor of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Prof. Zaini Ujang; journalist Berit Viuf with MUCED faculty members Prof. Abdul Halim Suleiman and Prof. Zuriati Zakaria