The University of Nottingham
Malaysia Campus

The University’s Facts & Figure 2014 is available for download on the website. This is a useful resource containing comparative information across all three campuses.

There will be a number of changes to on campus catering this year. First of all, we have changed our relationship with Sodexo. Instead of a fully outsourced service, Sodexo will operate the Food Court and the Terrace on behalf of UNMC under a management fee arrangement. This will give us more influence over the catering operation and you will see a number of changes including the introduction of value meal plans for staff and students, changes to the menu offers and we are negotiating for the introduction of an electronic point of sale system which we hope will replace the current coupon system. Secondly, we will have a Subway outlet opening shortly in the SA Building and we hope to be able to announce a new branded operator for the Café in Trent Building

UNMC and the School of Geography hosted an international conference on Conservation Biology from 19-22 Aug 2014, in Melaka. The conference attracted more than 350 delegates from many countries including 20 undergraduates,  40 Master, and 65 PhD students; The rest are professionals, mostly working at Asian universities and NGOs. This was one of the biggest event on Conservation Biology in Asia this year. 

And as their research agenda develops, we will be launching a new centre - Mindset  - to explore and better understand mechanisms for the protection and management of diverse ecosystems, while providing sustainable benefits to society.

There was an official programme launch by WinSET (Women In Science, Engineering and Technology) on Tuesday, 9 September. The launch was officiated by Y.Bhg. Dato’ Prof Dr Asma Binti Ismail, Director General of KPPT, JPT, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Higher Education and other speakers included Prof Adeeba Kamarulzaman, Dean of Medicine at UM. 

The MGAC is an international business case competition that utilizes cutting-edge technologies to simulate real-life business challenges. NUBS Malaysia first year student, William Peter Buck was part of a team of students that were First Runners-Up at the International Grand Finals in Kuala Lumpur in August. UNMC has nine students (out of 93 shortlisted candidates) who participated at National level. 

Three NUBS Malaysia students - Ben Kok Pin Tan, Eileen Li Ting Pang, and Guo Bin Leong - together with two other students emerged a fantastic First Runner-Up in the Accenture Journey. It is a fast-paced and enriching three-day program that gives participating final-year university students in Singapore and Malaysia a glimpse of a consulting professional's work. 

More information is available on the website.

Our Lifecycle and Family Day on campus was a great success with a good turnout. More than 900 staff, families, alumni and friends attended the event. You can see some photos shared on UNMC’s facebook page. 

Together, we have cycled 1,150km to increase autism awareness. Our fund raising focus on the broad area of access to education and the money we raised will be used to provide educational support to children with special needs – this year our focus is on the autism. We have raised more than RM40,000 and we’re continuing to see further donations before we close.

I hope you’ll join me in extending a special thanks to the organising team for all three events – they did a great job!. And congratulations to the Faculty of Engineering for their triumph in the staff sports carnival.

The Careers Advisory Service recently participated in a student survey conducted by Universum. Universum is an international company which specializes in the field of employer branding. This survey is part of a longstanding programme of research on employer branding that covers over 30 countries and involves over half a million students. It is the biggest career study conducted globally with some 1200 employers and 1,800 institutions participating in rating the career and employer preferences of top talent. Our Career Advisory Service received a rating of  seven from our students, (overall average score in Malaysia is 6.5) which is the highest rating of any career service in Malaysia this year. 

It has been a very difficult year with respect to visa processing and both new and returning international students have been affected. In June of this year, we moved away from an outsourced visa arrangement and we have created our own in house visa team. We have recruited a number of new staff and they are currently working very hard to clear a significant backlog of new and renewal visa applications. This does mean that a significant number of  returning and new students will be arriving late for the start of this academic year. Once our existing backlog has been cleared we are confident that we will be able to provide a much better service to our students in the future.