MISSION-ORIENTED APPROACH KEY TO STRENGTHENING MALAYSIA’S INNOVATION ECOSYSTEM

PUTRAJAYA, March 31 (Bernama) -- A mission-oriented approach, stronger cross-sector collaboration and a shift in mindset are crucial to addressing weaknesses in Malaysia’s innovation ecosystem and ensuring research delivers real economic and societal impact.

The issue was highlighted during ‘Convosphere: Signal in the Noise’, a dialogue session organised by the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM) under the theme “Overcoming the Messy Middle of Innovation.”

ASM president and Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) Advisor to the Prime Minister and the Nation, Datuk Dr Tengku Mohd Azzman Shariffadeen said Malaysia’s innovation system remained largely supply-driven, with excessive emphasis on research outputs such as publications and insufficient focus on end users, market demand and commercialisation.

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He described the situation as a "broken bridge" between knowledge producers and users, noting that both sides often operate in silos with different priorities.

"Business speaks the language of profits, while researchers speak the language of intellectual output. When these two sides are not talking to each other, the innovation system simply does not work," he said during his presentation at the session, here today.

Tengku Mohd Azzman said Malaysia had made progress in economic growth over the past two decades, but improvements in social well-being, environmental sustainability and the STI ecosystem had remained largely stagnant.

He stressed that long-term competitiveness depended increasingly on Total Factor Productivity (TFP), which reflected efficiency driven by innovation rather than labour or capital alone.

Currently, he said, Malaysia’s economic growth was still heavily dependent on labour and capital, while TFP remained lower compared with advanced economies, where productivity driven by innovation accounted for a larger share of growth.

"For more than 40 years, we have been trying to move beyond the middle-income level. The key to doing so is not more labour or more capital, but stronger productivity through innovation," he said.

To address these challenges, Tengku Mohd Azzman said ASM had proposed strengthening the National Science Council, chaired by the Prime Minister, to coordinate mission-oriented national initiatives through a whole-of-government approach.

He said the mission-oriented model focused on tackling major national challenges by aligning government agencies, industry and society around clear goals, rather than working in isolated sectors.

Meanwhile, Senior Research Fellow at the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), Dr Byeongwon Park, noted that while South Korea was widely regarded as a successful model in innovation and industrial development, its progress was achieved through sustained investment, strong governance and cross-ministerial coordination over several decades.

He said South Korea's approach demonstrated that transforming an innovation ecosystem was a long-term undertaking that required strategic planning, institutional alignment and consistent policy execution.

Park said South Korea had also invested heavily in long-term research and development (R&D) programmes aimed at driving economic productivity, employment creation and the development of new industries, supported by sustained funding and clear performance targets.

He said Malaysia, as a latecomer in certain high-technology sectors, stood to benefit from studying both the successes and limitations of countries like South Korea in designing its own innovation and industrial policies.

Another speaker, Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI) Delivery Management Unit senior director Aedreena Reeza Alwi said ownership, implementation capacity, inter-ministerial coordination and funding were among the most common challenges in translating policy into results.

She said ministries often struggled to align on shared goals when initiatives fell outside their existing key performance indicators, making coordination across agencies more difficult.

To address this under the New Industrial Master Plan (NIMP), she said MITI had introduced blended financing and co-investment mechanisms involving private capital, while setting clear mission-based priorities around economic complexity, digitalisation, decarbonisation and inclusivity.

"We want to promote local technology, not just buy licences from outside. But for that to happen, research must be closer to industry needs and more ready for commercial use," she said.

Industry representative Chan Kee Siak, who is also the founder and chief executive officer of Exabytes Group, said one of the biggest barriers to commercialisation was not only the product itself, but understanding users and market needs.

He said many startups and innovators focused too heavily on building products or conducting research, while overlooking the practical demands of customers and the need for continuous, incremental improvement.

“In today’s world, instead of waiting for one big success, we probably need smaller, faster cycles of testing, integration and improvement," he said.

-- BERNAMA