Professor Dato’ Omar Osman Vice-Chancellor, USM Secreteriat Office of the Vice-Chancellor Level 6, Chancellory Building 11800 USM, Penang Malaysia. Fax: 04-658 8444 Tel : 04-653 3105 (3151/2193/4102)

“Sustainability, broadly defined thus, applies to many disciplines, including economic development, environmental and natural resources management, food production, energy and socio-cultural dimensions and lifestyles engaged in transdiciplinary mode. It is within this framework that USM focuses its vision of a sustainable tomorrow while keenly promoting values such as equity as the universally accepted optimal endpoints. Concomitantly, USM will embrace the protection of multiple ecosystems, the conservation and restoration of resources as well as the development of human and intellectual capital for this purpose. USM will position itself to facilitate the meeting of existing (e.g., Millennium Development Goals) and other future global and universal aspirations towards the upliftment of the billions trapped at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid”