KUALA LUMPUR: The government has approved 99 research, development, commercialisation and innovation (R&D and C&I) projects and programmes worth RM5.6 billion to support the development of innovation sector in Malaysia for 2021 and 2022 under the 12th Malaysia Plan (12MP).
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government would also intensify commercialisation and innovation efforts to create more industry-based products and solutions with high added value.
"For this purpose, all R&D and C&I activities will be aligned with national development priorities.
"Digitalisation, adoption of technology and innovation are important to achieve sustainable economic growth," he said when opening the Malaysia Innovates Conference 2022 here today.
He said the commercialisation aspects would also be given emphasis by ensuring that at least 50 per cent of the total R&D expenditure is for experimental development research.
The Prime Minister said three entities have been established to develop the innovation ecosystem, with the first being the Research Management Unit under the Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister's Department to coordinate and organise the national research strategy.
The second entity is the Malaysian Research Accelerator for Technology and Innovation under the Technology Commercialisation Accelerator programme aimed at boosting commercialisation activities between academia and industry, he said.
Ismail Sabri said the third entity was the Malaysian Science Endowment under the purview of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) and the Malaysian Academy of Sciences which will create alternative funding for R&D and C&I through collaboration between industry and international bodies.
"The three entities need to work together to ensure that the results of R&D and C&I, as well as intellectual properties, become high value-added products, and put Malaysia at par with advanced innovation-based countries such as South Korea, Switzerland and Singapore," he said.
He explained that Malaysia's R&D and C&I landscape was different from developed countries because almost 80 per cent of researchers in this country in 2018 were in higher education institutions while 97.4 per cent of entrepreneurs came from Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).
