INTRODUCTION
Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) had successfully made a breakthrough in organizing National Research & Innovation Competition for academic year of 2006/2007, the achievement remain its splendid for the following academic year of 2007/2008, 2008/2009, 2009/2010 and 2010/2011. From the previous achievements, USM portrayed a vivid image as the APEX University which strives for a continuous excellence in research and development. Hence, MPPUSM would like to make NRIC 2012 as the supportive step in instilling the importance of research and development to the students besides giving them an opportunity to put their talents and creativity into real actions.
This academic year, 2011/2012, we would like to make the progression of NRIC not solely as a competition, but to bring it to higher standard. Besides IPTA and IPTS within Malaysia, NRIC 2012 is hoping to get the participation by institutions of higher education from Asia countries. This initiative will put USM stands out from the crowd in its effort in providing platform of interacting and sharing their knowledge. We are very fortunate to gain supports from the corporate sectors as well Malaysia’s government to make this event a success. This years’ convention will be extended to an additional flow of activities which encompasses CoRIC, corporate exhibitions and excursions.
These competition and convention are meant to build a good rapport between the institutions of higher education within our country. The strong ties cemented are believed to favour in our intention of nurturing capable human capital and workforce for the country’s future development. This project caught the public’s attention and is strongly supported by Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia due to its huge impact on the country’s development and affects all sectors positively in terms of research and innovation, regardless of public or private as well.
Lastly, we also would like to take this opportunity to invite several corporate companies from different sort of industries to exhibit their products and services. We are going to hold a small business fair in conjunction to this competition. Through this we hope to gain collaboration between higher education institution with corporate sectors and thus giving companies to get direct access to market their products for students as well as getting the pool of future workforce.