CORE - Community of Research Meeting

The university, through the Research Management Institute (RMI) has recently established the Community of Research (CORE)group to spearhead transdiciplinary research. Basically, CORE researchers comprise those serious researchers who are not members of specific centre of excellence. Whilst CoE members are very focused in their respective niche areas, CORE members are grouped into seven other research areas. The CoRe areas have been carefully selected based on international foresighting and scanning and nationally recognised research niches. These thrusts have been alludded to in the New Economic Model, Government Transformation Programmes, National Key Result Areas, National Key Economic Areas and Tenth Malaysia Plan. The seven CORE areas are namely:(1)Green Technology & Sustainable Development, (2) Frontier Materials & Industry Aplications; (3) Advanced Computing & Communications; (4)Drug Discovery & Health; (5) Humanities & Quality of Life; (6) Forensic Sciences and
(7)Brain & Neuroscience. Today, the Forensic Science CORE group met to discuss possible research topics to be submitted to the various national and international fund providers.

ARI Strategic Retreat 2010

Day Three
The third day is basically scheduled for two main events. Firstly, all researchers who have been awarded the ARI HICoE research grants presented their research progress and submitted their interim reports. Secondly, based on discussions and commitments deliberated durings the first two days of the retreat, all heads of research centres presented their "report card" related to thier centre's activities for 2010. More importantly, they also presented their plans and strategic initiatives for the years 2011 to 2015.
Seven research centres namely the CIMA-UiTM Asian Management Accounting Research Centre (AMARC), UiTM-MICG Corporate Governance Research Centre (CGRC), UiTM-ACCA Financial Reporting Research Centre (FRRC), Asia-Pacific Centre of Sustainability (APCeS), Asia-Pacific Forensic Accounting Research Centre (AFARe), Government-Linked Companies Research Centre (GLCRC) and UiTM-CPA Australia Public Sector Accounting Research Centre (PSARC) made their respective presentations. All in all, it was an effective three-day retreat. ARI's five-year strategic planning 2011 to 2015 will be documented and published by the end of 2010. ARI wishes to congratulate the strategic planning facilitators: Prof Dr Rashidah Abdul Rahman (she is also ARI's Deputy Director) and Dr Norli Ali (ARI's research fellow) for showcasing brilliant leadership. Congratulations all

Strategic Planning Retreat for ARI

Day Two:
The second day saw more serious discussions being made by members. Based on the eight dimensions used for MyRA score, members discussed about strategies, initiatives, action plans and key performance indicators for the next five years. Questions like how to increase the quantity and quality of ARI's principal researchers?. What actions should be taken to encourage researchers to publish in journals with impact factors?. How to increase the number of phd students and phd graduates?. What policies and incentives should be formulated to enhance post graduate programs at ARI?. Who should be our strategic partners and collaborators? What initiative should be taken to enhance industry and international linkages?. How to spearhead research and business innovations? What futuristic research areas should we focus to remain competitive and relevant?. Interestingly, when members are empowered and encouraged to "think from outside the box", ARI receives a lot of brilliant ideas and realistic targets that we must focus on within the next five years. Seven research centres and five special interest group members give their commitment to take ARI to a much greater height within the next five years. In the evening, we all had an enjoyable BBQ with members of ARI family. After a long-day meeting, everyone deserves a little break and to have fun. ARI also wishes to thank Prof Omar Masood and his lovely wife Fatima for joining us that evening. Almost eighty persons, comprising participants and family members of the partipants attended the BBQ event. The Faculty of Accountancy's Dean, Prof Dr Ibrahim Kamal Abdul Rahman who is also ARI's associate member took time off from his busy schedule to join us at Genting Highland. Congratulations and thank you everyone.

ARI Strategic Planning Meeting

Day One:
The group left the university to spend three days in Genting Highland to discuss ARI's next five-year strategic planning Blueprint for 2011-2015. A total of 39 ARI members attendend the meeting. Premised on the MyRA form which is used to evaluate centres of excellence, our strategic discussion will be based on eight dimensions. They are namely (1) Quantity and quality of researchers, (2) Quantity and Quality of research, (3) Quantity of postgraduats, (4)Quality of postgraduates, (5) Innovation, (6)Professional Services and gifts, (7) Networking and linkages and (8) Support facilities. The strategic meeting is attended by research fellows, heads of research centres and special interest groups. The first day started with a briefing on "Securing International Research Grants" by ARI's distinguished visiting professor, Dr Omar Masood.

NAfMA 2010 Winners

The National Award for Management Accounting (NAfMA) 2010 award dinner was held last night at the One World Hotel, Bandar Utama. The event was to celebrate NAfMA winners. ARI wishes to congratulate Maxis Berhad for winning the most prestigous NAfMA 2010 Excellence award. This award is given to a participating company with outstanding management accounting practices which have created value for the organization. Malaysia Airline Berhad and PLUS Berhad won the Best Practice and Practice Solution awards respectively under the public listed companies category. For the Non-listed companies, DIGI Sdn Berhad won the Best Practice Award and NST the Practice Solution Award.
Meanwhile, Century Software won the SME STAR Award and Tex Cycle took home the Practice Solution Award. Congratulations to all. NAfMA is jointly organized by the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA). Two other organizations namely UiTM and MPC are Awarding Partners.

ICFC 2010: Making a Presence

Day Two:
ARI wishes to congratulate all members of the organizing comittee under the chairmanship of Prof Dr Rozainun Aziz for organising a very successful international conference on Financial Criminology. The second day started with a high benchmark set by the Comissioner of MACC, Dato Seri Abu Kasim. An outstanding speaker indeed, he spoke on "Fraud and Corruption". This was followed by several papers on anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism by speakers from the Financial Intelligence Unit, Central Bank of Malaysia and the Association of Certified Anti Money-Luandering Specialists (USA). The last two speakers for the morning session were from the Securities Commissions (SC) and the Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM). Both spoke on financial criminology and fraud deterrent mechanisms. In essence, fraud knows no boundry. There's a need for a new breed of professional - the forensic accountants. The afternoon session continued with an international speaker who spoke and discussed about financial criminology and insurance fraud. This was followed by a panel discussion which was moderated by ARI's own professor, Prof Dr Syed Noh Ahmad. All was well, congratulations.

ICFC 2010: Deterring Fraud Through Financial Criminology with Islamic Perspective

Day One
2010 marks the third series of international conference in financial criminology being organized by the Asia-Pacific Forensic Accounting research Centre (AFARe), one of the leading research centres within the Accounting research Institute (ARI)administrative framework. The first conference was held at the Securities Commission in 2008. In 2009, the second ICFC was organized collaboratively with the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) and being held at the Kuala Lumpur Tower. ICFC 2010 is jointly organized by Universiti Teknologi MARA and the Companies Commission Malaysia (CCM) at the CCM Auditorium at KL Central. Themed "Deterring Fraud through Financial Criminology with Islamic Perspective", ICFC 2010 one of ARI's main initiatives to support its role as a HICoE whose niche research area is Islamic Financial Criminology. The conference was graced by one of the university's pro-chancellor, Ybg Tan Sri Dato' Seri Arshad Ayub. For the Faculty of Accountancy and ARI, Tan Sri Arshad has been instrumental in establishing and introducing the accounting professional program way back in the 1960s. Y. Bhg Dato' Dr Nik Mustafa, the Director General of IKIM presented a keynote paper that set the direction and flow of the conference discussions. Following the keynote paper, Prof Sofian from Indonesia, Dr Nawal from ARI, Prof Dr Syed Musa from Unirazak, Mr Selamat from Al-Rajhi Bank discussed the fraud deterrent mechanisms from the Shariah and Islamic perspectives.

MAR Special Issue on Islamic Financial Criminology

The Asia Pacific Forensic Accounting Research Centre (AFARe) of the Accounting Research Institute, Universiti Teknologi MARA will be hosting a two-day international conference on financial criminology (ICFC 2010) on 14 and 15 December 2010 at the CCM Auditorium, KL Central. Themed "Deterring Fraud Through Financial Criminology with Islamic Perspective", it is expected that more than three hundred participants who have registered will be attending the event. One of the highlights of ICFC 2010 will be the launching of a special issue of the Malaysian Accounting Review (MAR)Journal - Volume 9, No 2. The special issue will publish a total of thirteen (13) journal articles on Islamic Financial Criminology. The launching will be graced by the university's Pro-Chancellor, Tan Sri Arshad Ayub during the conference dinner on 14th December 2010.

CCM Talk on Potential Research on Non-Profit Organizations

Mr Mohamed Sufyan Mohd Mokhtar, an Officer from the Legal and Supervision Department, Companies Commission of Malaysia (CCM)and his team came to give talk to ARI and faculty members on possible research topics that could be explored on Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs).
CCM hopes to establish a Code of Best Practice which ultimately will become standards that NPOs need to comply with. The talk is part of CCM's initiative of working together with academics and researchers in this country.
At the end of the half day seminar, ARI members identified several research topics which include among others:
1. Case study on NPO Best Practices
2. Developing NPO Financial Reporting Standard
3. NPO Governance, Accountability and Transparency Framework
4. NPO Commission
5. Governance of Non-Registered NPOs
6. Charity Organizations

IAFC 2010 Continues

Day Two:Day Two saw more papers being presented. The organizers held a special meeting with Professor Malcom Smith to discuss future collaboration. ARI and the Faculty of Accountantcy hope to appoint Professor Smith as a Distinguished Visiting Professor. Basically the meeting discussed possible topics that could be conducted collaboratively between ARI members and Professor Smith. Research topics related to corporate governance, financial reporting, auditing and fraud incidents have been identified as priority areas.
More importantly ARI is extremely happy with the contributions and commitment given and shown by its main co-organizers: Faculty of Accountancy & Faculty of Business Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA Sabah Campus. Well done and Congratulations.