Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) in Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia and SEARCA formally signed the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) for a three-year joint graduate scholarship project that will benefit nationals of Southeast Asia starting in Academic Year 2012-2013. The signing ceremony was held on 19 November 2012 at the School of Graduate Studies 2, UPM Serdang campus, in conjunction with the 25th University Consortium Executive Board Meeting on 19-20 November 2012 which was hosted by UPM. Signatories to the MoA areProf. Dato’ Ir. Dr. Mohd Saleh Jaafar, UPM’s Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation, and Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit, Jr., SEARCA Director.
The project shall provide one matching UPM-SEARCA scholarship for every one full scholarship from SEARCA for qualified nationals from the eleven member countries of SEAMEO who will pursue their Masters or PhD degrees at UPM. The eleven member countries are Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Vietnam.
Prof. Jaafar expressed UPM’s appreciation for yet another mode of cooperation that will increase the number of beneficiaries among agricultural human resources in Southeast Asia, and at the same time strengthens the link between UPM and SEARCA. On the other hand, Dr. Saguiguit said that SEARCA views this new collaboration as an important building block to strengthen institutional ties with UPM, which has been one of the study posts of SEARCA scholars since the early 1980s, and which is highly regarded as one of the prime academic institutions for the agricultural sciences in Southeast Asia. He expressed hopes that the continuing ties will evolve into a higher plane including joint research and development undertakings, scientific forums, and conferences on emerging development issues in agriculture, knowledge management, and academic exchange programs not only with SEARCA but also with the members of the University Consortium