Research Strategy
The research culture at FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur will be achieved through the following strategies:
- Attracting suitable academicians to join FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur
- Incorporating incentives and promotions for active research and teaching in the HR appraisal system of academic staff, tied to research and teaching
- Allocating an appropriate budget for developing and maintaining research resources
- Identifying suitable areas to focus key research efforts
These strategies are further elaborated below.
1. Attracting suitable academicians to join FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur
FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur will be recruiting a number of academic staff that are research active and have an academic perspective on research. This means that we are looking to faculty members who are currently working in academic departments in universities, or who have recently completed a research postgraduate qualification, such as a PhD. There may also be suitable candidates who are currently working within the corporate research and development departments and wish to make the transition to academia.
The newly appointed academic staff should preferably have been successful in the publication of articles and conference papers covering a range of topics. It is from this base that FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur will support and encourage all interested academic staff to participate in research activities in order to achieve the research objectives of the organization.
FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur’s academics’ recruitment policies will be to attract individuals who are committed to their work and by working with FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur, will build its reputation as a center for excellence in teaching and research.
2. HR appraisal systems for academic staff
Newly appointed academic staff will be subjected to orientation and induction as spelled out in the Academic Staff Development policy.
The duties and responsibilities of academic staff at different levels, in terms of teaching hours, contributions to research and administrative duties, shall be outlined and communicated to them.
Training will be given to those who require improvement in these areas using external or in-house trainers. The type of training required will be identified during the bi-annual appraisal exercise.
Appraisal on teaching ability will be based on the evaluation by the Academic Manager and students.
3. Budget for research
When research is established in FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur, it is reasonable to expect research groups to obtain research funding from sources outside FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur.
The main cost of research involves:
- Staff time
- Salaries for post-doc research assistants
- Scholarships for research students
- Relief of academic staff from other duties to pursue research and related activities
- Equipment/ facilitiesTravel expenses for attending meetings and conferences.This is an essential part of research as it gives the researcher the opportunity to learn and exchange views with other researchers.
- A well equipped library with research journals, directories, books and reference materials, internet
- Subscription to on-line research databases and software like SPSS and AMOS
- The costs of conducting surveys and interviews.
Staff who carries out empirical studies via surveys and interviews will need a budget for the work.
FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur has stated its intention to support staff who wish to undertake research activities in the following manner:
- ‘Ring Fencing’ time for the research to be undertaken
- Sponsoring academic staff for attending and presenting papers at conferences
- Enhancing research capability through training
- Ensuring the availability of facilities required
4. Identifying suitable areas to focus research efforts
A focused approach will be used due to limited resources. By starting prudently risk will be managed. In addition, the research areas identified should be beneficial for the staff, students, organization and the community. As such, any proposed research projects can be:
- The research interest of the individual staff member
- Joint research interests between staff and student
- Joint research interests between FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur and other institutions
Research efforts should not only leverage on the expertise and interests of the lecturers, but also focus on areas that are relevant to the local and regional business community. Hence, current research efforts at FTMS College, Kuala Lumpur shall focus on the following areas
- Project management and operations
- Cross-cultural studies
- Human resource policies in globalization
- Network studies
- IT and Finance
- Maximisation of human capital
- Creating maximum employment opportunities
- Working in harmony with environment
- Inter-religious harmony
- Issues relating to corporate governance
- Natural language processing
- Image processor
- Computing ethics
