STRATEGIC PLANNING WORKSHOP
The three-day event (13th to the 15th of February 2017) was held at INFORMM Penang. Academic staff from Penang and Kelantan attended the workshop. The objectives of the workshop were to revisit previous strategies put in place and analyze the relevance of the approaches to the recent challenges faced in the research ecosystem. The highlight of the workshop was the identification of the three research clusters (Diagnostics, Cancer and Advanced Research Technologies) at INFORMM. Every academic staff in INFORMM took time to share their current research focus and future direction heading into the next 5 years. The event also allowed knowledge sharing between the academic staff as well as the formulation of new ideas for collaborations. An overview of the Key Performance Index system was also provided by the Director of Bahagian Pembangunan Institusi, Professor Phua Kia Kien. The overview was to help academic staff to further understand the expectations and directions of the university in order to prepare INFORMM for the upcoming challenges. This played an integral part in the formulation of INFORMM’s strategy moving forward for the next 5 years. The brainstorming session allowed for peers to share opinions and insight to consolidate on a common idea to push the research activities in INFORMM to the next level. On the final day, all three clusters shared their individual strategies and targets for the coming year to agree on one common agenda to move INFORMM forward. This session was conducted with our research team members from Kelantan via teleconference. Although far, their influence and opinions were equally considered. At the end of the workshop, improvements to the existing strategies as well as the introduction of new measures were agreed upon. It is hoped that the strategies put in place will help propel INFORMM to greater heights in the coming future.
