Australian Institute of Criminology - AIC

Day Three

It was such an awesome experience and opportunity to meet up with researchers and the management team of the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) in Canberra. The Australian Institute of Criminology is Australia's national research and knowledge centre on crime and justice.
Basically, AIC seeks to promote justice and reduce crime by undertaking and communicating evidence-based research to inform policy and practice. The AIC was established in 1973 under the Criminology Research Act 1971. Since July 1, 2011 the Australian Institute of Criminology, a Commonwealth statutory authority, is regulated under the Financial Management and Accountability Act 1997 (FMA Act). The functions of the AIC include conducting criminological research; communicating the results of research; conducting or arranging conferences and seminars; and publishing material arising out of the AIC's work. At AIC, we met up with four officers: Dr Adam Tomison, Director & CEO; Mr Tony Marks, GM & CFO; Dr Rick Brown, Deputy Director (Research) and Dr Samantha Bricknell, Research Analyst. The research publications produced by AIC are fairly impressive. The monographs include among others, titles such as “Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing Risks Posed by Alternative Remittance in Australia”, “Labour Trafficking”, “Environmental Crime in Australia”, “Community Safety in Australian Indegenious Communities: Service Providers’ Perspective” and “Community Policing in Australia”. AIC is indeed a good benchmark for the Accounting Research Institute. The meeting resulted in many potential research collaborations between the two entities. In particular, research in the areas of NPO Governance, AML/CFT in Alternative Remittance Institutions and Human Trafficking are most viable…

ANU Research Visit

Day Two

A quote from the university’s the Conferring of Awards Programme Booklet – July 2011 stipulates that
“Australian National University (ANU) is the only Australian member of the international Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) – a strategic partnership between the world’s best education and research institutions. The alliance shares a focus on research-led teaching, a commitment to educating future leaders and tackling some of the century’s biggest challenges. As Australia’s national university, ANU sets the standard in research, education and community engagement, on issues of national and international importance”. At ANU, the School of Accounting & Business Information is placed within the ANU College of Business & Economics. Next after University of Canberra, Professor Dr Normah and Dr Roszana met up with three researchers at ANU – Professor Juliana Ng & Dr Greg Shailer from ANU and another ANU newly PhD qualified researcher from Thailand, Dr Warawude Rurkwaranuk. ARI-ANU collaborative research will not be restricted to Financial Criminology alone.
There are strong research in the areas of corporate governance, finance, sustainability and financial reporting at the Australian National University. ARI's various heads of research centres: FRRC, CGRC, AMARC, APCeS, GLCRC and PSARC will need to do some follow ups on the prospect of research collaborations between the two universities....

ARI-University of Canberra Research Meeting

Day One

Prof Dr Normah Omar and Dr Roszana Tafsir arrived at the beautiful campus of University of Canberra (UC) at 10.00 am. The discipline of accounting, banking and finance is within the structure of the Faculty of Business and Government. There, at building no. 6, they were warmly greeted by the office secretary. A meeting with ten researchers, comprising professors and post-graduate students has been kindly arranged by Dr Miland Sathye, a professor in banking and finance. Prof Sathye himself has written several papers related to the cost of AML/CFT. What is interesting about the researchers here at UC is the fact they have a good balance of both teaching experience and being a practitioner in their respective fields. The meeting basically discussed specific collaborative research areas that could be explored by both ARI and UC. In addition to research in financial criminology, other topics include “The Independence of Auditor General”, “Critical Analysis of off-balance sheet items”, “Performance audit in the public sector” and “The impact of fraud on the capital market”. In a nutshell, it was a great research discussion

ARI Working Visits to Australian Universities and Research Centre

Prof Dr Normah, Director of ARI and Dr Roszana Tapsir, ARI research associate are on a 9-day working visit to Australia. The duo is to visit five Australian Universities, namely University of Canberra, Australia National University, University of New South Wales, University of Wollongong and Macquarie University. In tandem with ARI’s niche research agenda in Financial Criminology, they will be meeting and discussing with several researchers and professors who will be participating in ARI’s two international research projects: (i) The cost-effectivess of anti money laundering/Counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) initiatives in financial institutions and (ii) AML/CFT governance framework of non-profit and charity organizations in developing and developed countries. In addition to the five universities, Prof Dr Normah and Dr Roszana will also be visiting the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) in Canberra. The visits are part of ARI’s 2011/2012 internationalization of its research agenda in Islamic Financial Criminology. The actual meeting will start tomorrow with the University of Canberra.

Visit by Institute of Public Enterprise, India

Yesterday, ARI received guests from the Institute of Public Enterprise (IPE), a centre of excellence at Osmania University in India. IPE was established in 1964 as an autonomous non-profit institute with the objective of furthering studies, research and consultancy in management sciences. Specifically, IPE is devoted to systematic and sustained study of issues relevant to the formulation, implementation, review, monitoring and assessment of policies and programs concerning public enterprises. IPE Director, Prof R. K. Mishra brought along his three researchers to the meeting. In principle, ARI and IPE have agreed to collaborate in three programs of research, training and publication. Specific domain of research is in the governance area of public enterprises or government-linked companies both in India and Malaysia. Tentatively, a memorandum of understanding by both institutes will be signed in the fourth quarter of this year.
The prospect of collaboration is really great and we hope to be able to contribute significantly by providing related research findings to both the government of India and Malaysia on the competitive role of public enterprises /government-linked companies in transforming a nation from a developing status to a developed country....

National Congress of Professors

Day Three

The final day of the Congress saw two very important events. First was the handing over of fourteen congress resolutions by the Congress Director, Professor Dato' Dr Mohamad Mustafa Ishak to the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. The second event was the closing ceremony by YAB Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia. Basically, the Council of Professors has been divided into fourteen very important clusters: (1)Natural Resources & Environment, (2)Economy & Finance, (3)Governance, Law & Public Management, (4) Information Technology & Communication, (5) Industry & Innovation, (6)Engineering & Technology, (7)Science & mathematics, (8) Social Development & Quality of Life, (9) Education & Human Development, (10)Medicine & Health, (11)Politics & International Security, (12)Pharmacy & Applied Sciences, (13)History, Heritage & Socio-culture and (14) Agriculture & Food. Each cluster has prepared its detailed resolution encompasing the 4W and 1H questions (What, Why, When, Who and How). The program ended with a press conference by the VVIP and congress lunch. Till we meet again in the future, the Congress has been a great success...

National Congress of Professors

Day Two

More interesting discussions took place on the second day of the Congress. The morning event started with a plenary session by Prof Dr Nay Htun, a Distinguished Professor from the Department of Technology & Society,Stony Brook University, New York USA. Prof Htun spoke on a paper entitled "Bridging the Natural Sciences and Social Sciences". In sycned with his own research on Global Warming, Prof Htun stressed that "Human actions have resulted in global warming and the acidification of oceans..", hence the solutions to many world problems such as global warming need to integrate both natural and social sciences. Social science-related solutions may include measures such as economic incentives, financing mechanism, behavioral/societal determinents, capacity building, governance and policy. Cluster workshops continued immediately after the plenary session. The evening was specially dedicated to three important events. Immediately after dinner was the Congress Official Opening by the YAB Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato' Sri Mohd Najib Tun Haji Abdul Razak. In his speech, the Prime Minister reiterated his hopes and expectations that professors must play a significant and proactive role in nation building and in transforming Malaysia into a high income country by 2020. This was followed by a dinner talk by Prof Michael Porter from Harvard University USA. The talk was carried live through tele-conferencing from USA. In tandem with Malaysia's aspiration to become a developed nation, Prof Porter discussed on "Country Competitiveness". One of the most important aspects of a high income nation is the real need for businesses to increase their efficiency & productivity and for them to embrace innovations. Malaysia has most of the ingredients needed for a country to become a developed nation: resources, location and people. But Malaysia must enhance the production of skilled human resources and embrace innovation in a big way. Again, the call to integrate natural science & technology with social science elements was emphasized...

Congress of Professors

Day One

The Malaysian Council of Professors (MPN) holds its first national congress on 6-8 July 2011 at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) in Kuala Lumpur. Themed "Knowledge Transforming The Nation", the congress is attended by 1200 professors from all public universities in Malaysia.
The event started with two welcome addresses: first by the Director, of this year congress, Prof Dato' Dr Mohamed Mustafa Ishak and that was followed by Professor Emeritus Dato' Dr Zakri Abdul Hamid. Prof Zakri is the Chairman of MPN. Participants were informed that the main aim of the congress was for professors to address or discuss government transformational agendas and to come up with suitable workable resolutions that can be used for nationa building. The first day saw three plenary papers being presented. The first paper, "Knowledge Transforming the Nation: Perspective from STI" was delivered by Prof Dato' Zakri. The second paper, "Knowledge transforming the Nation: Perspective from Social Science & Humanities". Despite the stress on science, technology and innovation for nation building, the soft aspects of humanities such as ethical values and quality of life will "complete the cycle" for a great nation. Yang Berbahagia Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad delivered a third paper titled "Transformational Agenda Beyond 2020".
Tun Mahathir, being the architect of VISION 2020, reiterated the need to balance our aspiration of becoming a developed nation with the right morality value for Malaysia. Guided by these three important papers, participants were divided into seven groups to discuss Malaysia's transformation agenda.

4th HICoE Meeting

Today, the Accounting Research Institute has been given the honour to host the fourth meeting of the Higher Institutions' Centre of Excellence (HICoE). The first three meetings were respectively hosted by UMBI, UMPEDAC and INFORMM. Basically, the main aim of the meeting is to share and update all members on respective HICoE's progress. As much as possible, all six HICoEs want to grow forward and achieve the regional status together. In our discussions, all HICoEs basically agreed that the niche research agenda "assigned" to them has indeed helped the centres to propel to greater heights. Other things being discussed include issues related to dual membership of researchers; infrastructure to support HICoE expansion as well as developing strategies in securing international research grants. The Accounting Research Institute is indeed very honoured to be given the responsibility to drive a new research area in Islamic Financial Criminology (IFC). In essence, IFC can further be divided into two critical themes: Islamic Accounting & Finance and Financial Criminology. To date, ARI is the only research institute in this region that focuses its research agenda in "Islamic Financial Criminology". Research and publication potentials in this area are indeed enormous. The meeting has also agreed that the next HICoE meeting will be hosted by the Institute of Bioscience (IBS) of Universiti Putra Malaysia.

Farewell to Prof Dr Muhd Kamil

The Faculty of Accountancy and ARI organized a farewell do for our associate member Prof Dr Muhd Kamil Ibrahim. Effective September 2011, Prof Kamil is opting for an early retirement and will be moving to the University of Taiba in Saudi Arabia to take up a professorial position there. Prof Muhd Kamil was the founder of the Financial Reporting Research Centre (FRRC)was back in 2003. We will certainly miss him. Prof Kamil is an avid writer and an active researcher. He is an author of several best selling book, one of which is "Travelog Haji". . Among his other famous books include "Kecil Tapi Significant" - a must read book to those who is starting their PhD journey and "Travelog Iman". ARI members, including his many post-graduate students wish him all the best and we wish him well. Hopefully, through him, ARI will be able to foster some form of international collaboration with his new university and many other universities in the Middle east....