Breaking open a closed system

Nature 436, 884-885 (August 2005) | doi:10.1038/nj7052-884a

David Cyranoski

Malaysia's research system is closed and isolated. What are scientists with a yen for rigorous research to do? David Cyranoski finds out.

In March 2005, neuroscientist Ishwar Parhar had coffee with the king of Malaysia at a Tokyo hotel. "He asked me why I don't come back to Malaysia," Parhar remembers. A desire to do more research than the infrastructure would allow had driven him away years before, and he had had no indication that the government was serious about plans to strengthen science. Months later, officials from Malaysia's science and health ministries negotiated to let Parhar, currently at Nippon Medical School in Tokyo, build a new brain-science research institute in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. "The meeting with the king was good," he says. "I think it got the ministries to talk to me."

But not everyone can meet the king, or have a new institute set up to back a recruitment drive. Outsiders in Malaysia have difficulty finding attractive research positions. Cronyism is rife. Foreigners aren't the only ones to miss out: policies designed to promote development of the ethnic Malay majority put the affluent, educated Chinese and Indian minorities at a disadvantage in education and employment — and in the forefront of the brain drain from Malaysia.

Pay is unattractive, and a dearth of colleagues and postgraduates to collaborate or discuss research with makes this an isolated world. There is little pressure on researchers to publish in international journals. Doing little to attract researchers and much to drive them away, Malaysia has a serious human-resource problem. Efforts to create a bioindustrial hub flopped mainly for that reason (see Nature 436, 620–621; 2005 ).

But the government is trying to encourage change. In 2003, for example, it partially reversed a 30-year-old policy, created to strengthen the ethnic Malay majority, of having all courses taught in Malay; mathematics and science are now taught in English. This has removed an extra impediment to Chinese and Indian scholars and is helping to promote Malaysian scientists' ability to interact internationally.

Private enterprises

The government's decision in 1996 to allow private universities is shaking things up even more. The institutions that are now emerging could form a much-needed bridge to the international research community.

"It was a bold initiative to make Malaysia a centre of excellence," says inorganic chemist Kumar Das, vice-chancellor of the science department at the private Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology (AIMST).

The new private institutions — including AIMST, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Monash University Malaysia, Penang Medical College and the International Medical University — are expanding. UTAR's science and technology faculty, established only a year and a half ago, has 65 staff and 1,500 students; plans are to boost these numbers to 400 and 7,000, respectively, over the next four years. Mostly with private support, all are constructing large campuses.

The private universities and colleges were formed to fill a gap in the Malaysian education system created by a 'Malays first' policy. The policy guarantees places for ethnic Malays, reducing the options for the Chinese and Indian minorities. To offer more opportunities to home-grown talent, Chinese Malaysians with political power established UTAR and their Indian counterparts set up AIMST. Admission is open to students of all ethnic groups through a purely merit-based selection process. All classes are taught in English.

But the effect of these institutions is likely to reach well beyond offering places to minorities. They have scientific ambitions and internationalism on the brain. A quarter of the staff at Monash are foreign, mostly recruited from the region: these universities actively seek staff from abroad or with training overseas. And the administration is creating collaborations with overseas universities.

Furthermore, the new institutes put an emphasis on cutting-edge research, such as brain science at Monash and organometallic chemistry at UTAR. They send staff to international academic conferences and encourage publication in international journals.

"Right now the emphasis on research is not high," says Tham Choy-Yoong, dean of the faculty of science and engineering at UTAR. An astrophysicist formerly at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, UK, Tham says he wants to introduce what he learned there. "In Britain, research is everything. It's more important than stressing how many students you can train."

A Malaysian developmental biologist who recently moved from a national university, and asked not to be named, says the independent institutes have a different philosophy. "The problem with the national universities is that there is too much central control, so the area of innovation is very limited. Universities should be a place to experiment."

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Cash flow

That road will not be easy, as funding and human resources will continue to be a problem. The private universities only achieved the right to get grants from the main funding source, Intensification of Research in Priority Areas grants, two months ago. But even these have their problems, says Merilyn Liddell, vice-chancellor of Monash Malaysia. She is particularly concerned that grants do not provide for major infrastructure or salary. "From the university's perspective, it costs money to get the grant," she says.

Moreover, the grants specify priority areas, focusing on applied science over basic research, says Liddell. Many researchers in Malaysia echo her concern, saying that R&D investment seems focused on schemes to turn a quick profit rather than on long-term development. Much of the country's national research is on rubber, forestry and palm oil.

The grant system still causes concern, because the peer-review ideal is often replaced by patronage. "In Malaysia, the pool of people reading the grants is so small, they will clearly know who has written them," says Parhar. In a place where cronyism from the top down is rife, and ethnic lines clearly demarcated, the toll on merit-based assessment can be high.

This February, Monash Malaysia provided a report for the government advising it to put millions of dollars into basic-research activities at foreign-branch universities. "By training people in research, we could contribute to the human capital of the country," says Liddell.

The new universities are struggling to provide competitive salaries so that established scientists can be recruited to form a research core. One foreign scientist working in Malaysia says she couldn't even pay rent on her salary.

Taking the long view: the Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology has ambitious expansion plans.

A shortage of colleagues and staff is also a lingering concern. There's a dire need for postgraduate students, says Das, "but Malaysian postdocs get only a small stipend, and foreigners get none". Parhar is bringing six of his own postdocs — four Japanese and two Chinese — to help set his institute up. But wholesale importing won't be an option for many.

Malaysia's famed biodiversity could be a great draw for researchers. But even that has been tainted by bad policies, say researchers. One foreign ecologist says that environmental-protection laws are not enforced, and considerable red tape must be hacked through before researchers can get out to the rainforests.

Meanwhile, the pool of scientists who could collaborate on biodiversity projects has shrunk. "Taxonomists are an endangered species," says Abdul Razak Mohd Ali, head of the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, which is heading a national project on a biodiversity inventory. Many blame late-1990s policies designed to cultivate biotechnologists while supplanting taxonomists, but attitudes seem to be changing (see Nature 436, 313; 2005).

If the new institutes manage to attract top researchers, the Malaysian research community could develop basic and applied research capacity in line with international trends, as neighbouring Singapore has done (see Nature 425, 746–747; 2003).

Parhar is hopeful. He plans, among other things, to establish an active neuroscience and endocrinology society that could host the International Brain Research Organization's annual meeting.

"I want this to become a regional centre of excellence in neuroscience," says Parhar. "Once we show good-quality research, we will become attractive to scientists in the region and even to some in the United States and Europe."

The valley of ghosts

Nature 436, 620-621 (4 August 2005) | doi:10.1038/436620a

David Cyranosk

While other Asian tigers are roaring ahead in biotechnology, Malaysia's BioValley is going nowhere fast. David Cyranoski asks what went wrong.

Asking Malaysian researchers what happened to their country's flagship science project, known as the BioValley, is a confusing experience. Some claim it is still under development. Others say it never existed. Many are simply unwilling to talk about it.

But this was always a difficult project to pin down. Launched in May 2003, the BioValley was one of the final initiatives of Malaysia's strongman prime minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad, who stepped down from power a few months later. Incorporating three new research institutes and costing some US$160 million, the BioValley was meant to attract biotech companies to a centralized hub that would offer cheap rent, good telecommunications infrastructure and access to the country's lush biodiversity — a potential source of new drugs and other useful products.

But even after its launch, it was hard to obtain concrete details about the BioValley. Aside from the plans drawn up by famed Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa, the project was shrouded in mystery. By now, the 80-hectare campus in Dengkil, south of Kuala Lumpur, should have been nearing completion. Instead, the site lies empty. And official documents reveal that, earlier this year, the BioValley quietly morphed into the BioNexus, a much less ambitious scheme comprising just one new institute in Dengkil, and two other 'centres of excellence' built around existing labs elsewhere.

All this is in marked contrast to developments in neighbouring Singapore, the city-state that nestles at the tip of peninsular Malaysia. There, a formidable biomedical research hub, the Biopolis, positively bustles with activity.

Problematic past

On the face of it, the disparity is puzzling. Singapore and Malaysia have much in common — their populations have a similar ethnic mix, both have governments with an authoritarian streak, and both see biotechnology as a springboard for future economic growth. Malaysia, in particular, wants to decrease its heavy reliance on the electronics industry and the production of palm oil.

But while Singapore has recognized that scientific success means aggressively recruiting top talent regardless of nationality, race or creed, Malaysia's biotech push has been hampered by a legacy of ethnic strife, its hands tied by an educational policy designed to favour its ethnic Malay majority.

The BioValley is just the most conspicuous feature in a landscape of failed effort. Elsewhere, flashy new labs remain largely unused, some of them led by people without proper scientific credentials. And in a culture in which criticism of authority is taboo, these problems don't look remotely near resolution. One senior political figure (who, like most of the people interviewed for this article, did not want his name mentioned) complains that the BioValley "was all about fancy buildings and real-estate development".

Mahathir and his acolytes seemed to assume that researchers would come pouring into shiny new centres bearing the label 'biotechnology'. It was a naive view, suggest foreign observers familiar with the Malaysian scientific scene. "With no history in biotechnology, and little industrial presence, the risk is very high," says Keiichi Kiyota, president of the Tokyo-based Nimura Genetics Solutions, one of very few foreign companies with research activities in Malaysia. "The greatest problem is the lack of manpower," he adds.

Given this dearth of talent, Malaysian science can ill afford the brain drain that sees many young scientists, particularly those from the nation's Chinese and Indian minorities, leave the country. It's easy to see why, given that the dice are loaded against them. "The 'Malays first' policy holds them back," says biochemist Barry Halliwell, who heads the National University of Singapore's graduate school. "It does Singapore a good favour, as many come here." Last year, for instance, 128 students with straight A grades were denied access to medical school in Malaysia, while less qualified candidates were accepted. The excluded students were all non-Malay.

The 'Malays first' policy has its origins in the race riots of 1969, which were sparked by the Malay majority's resentment of the Malaysian Chinese community's economic successes. Given the bitter memories of this conflict, some researchers back the policy of granting privileged opportunities to Malays. "Otherwise people would become second-class citizens in their own country and you'd have a time bomb on your hands," says Salleh Mohammed Nor, former director of the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia in Kepong, near Kuala Lumpur, and now president of the Malaysian Nature Society.

In the early 1970s, the government made a concerted effort to promote the interests of the Malay majority. In 1975, for example, the Malay language — Bahasa Malaysia — replaced English as the standard language of education. But critics say that this policy has damaged Malaysia's education system by failing to reward merit. "All vice-chancellors are appointed by the government without any kind of search committee," says one former University of Malaya researcher. "It's all favouritism."

Empty labs

Even when new labs have been built, they've failed to make much impact. The Technology Park Malaysia near Kuala Lumpur, for instance, hosts a government-sponsored institute that was supposed to act as a magnet for biotech companies. When Nature visited the two-year-old facility in late June, its high-performance liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry instruments lay idle — and only two research staff were present, huddled by a computer. Malaysia has unemployed graduates, but many don't have the requisite skills, including English ability, says an administrator at the park. "Good people go overseas," he adds.

This failure to embrace the international language of science is symptomatic of a general detachment of Malaysia's research system from the world scene. For most Malaysian researchers, publications in international peer-reviewed journals do not seem to be a priority. "People here don't seem to publish much, apart from in workshop and conference proceedings," says one visiting ecologist.

The country has also attracted few foreign researchers. Pay is low and there are few postdoctoral students to work with unless you bring your own. "There is nobody here who really understands what I am doing apart from my students," says a foreign researcher who is in Malaysia for family reasons. "People in my department are perpetually putting obstacles in my way."

Again, the contrast with Singapore is stark. Researchers there have high pay and high status, and the government has cast its net wide to bring in top scientific talent. Of the 35 principal investigators at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, the country's premier research centre, only one is Singaporean. "If people have brains, I'll borrow them," declares Philip Yeo, who chairs A^*STAR, the country's main science funding agency.

In theory, Malaysia's leaders recognize the need to emulate Singapore's hiring policies. In 1995, for instance, Mahathir initiated a five-year plan to recruit 5,000 foreign researchers a year. But the scheme attracted just 94 scientists, and 24 of them were returning Malaysians. By 2004, only one of these researchers remained in the country.

This pattern of setting and then failing to meet grandiose targets was common in the Mahathir era. So it should perhaps come as no surprise that the BioValley never made it off the drawing board. Its humbler successor — the BioNexus — is based around existing labs specializing in agricultural biotechnology, genomics and molecular biology. The single new centre will focus on pharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.

The BioNexus is part of the national biotechnology policy that was unveiled in April this year, which is supposed to remedy previous failings. A new organization, the Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation, is chaired by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and will provide tax breaks and matching grants to biotechnology companies. Its stated goal is to promote projects that can gain "international recognition".

This toned-down and yet outward-looking approach seems to be part of a more realistic framework of education and science policies now being introduced. In Penang, for instance, the local government is establishing a research base that would include contract research activities in animal toxicology — which may be of interest to foreign companies. "Tests are cheaper here and the animal-rights issues are not as prominent," says Penang's mayor, Koh Tsu Khoon, who recognizes that investment in people will be essential. "We are building on brains rather than buildings," he says.

Rewarding merit

The central government is also taking steps to introduce more fundamental reforms. In 2003, English became the language of school instruction in maths and the sciences. Private universities have also been allowed — and are now providing opportunities for ethnic Chinese and Indian students who feel discriminated against by the state system. These include the Malaysian branch of Monash University, based near Melbourne in Australia. And officially, the rigid quotas used to enforce the 'Malays first' policy in higher education have given way to a merit-based system for allocating state university places.

But without standardized state university entrance exams, some critics remain sceptical about the likelihood of real progress. Unless Malaysia is able to shed its legacy of ethnic favouritism, they are dubious about the nation's chances of competing with its neighbours in biotechnology. "Frankly, while the government funds mostly Malays, it won't happen," says one foreign scientist based in Malaysia. "The government is putting a lot of money into biotech but I doubt that anything will come of it. I see a lot of white elephants."