Xiamen University Malaysia Secures RM1.047 Million For Seven Research Projects Under GET 2026

Seven Xiamen University Malaysia academics have secured a combined RM1,047,298.30 under the Higher Education Ministry's Exploratory and Transformative Research Grant programme for 2026, with projects spanning clean energy, food safety, marine monitoring and other sustainability-related fields.

The university announced the awards Oct. 15, describing support across the programme's first and second phases. The total is funding for seven research projects, rather than a single project award or revenue from commercial products.

Two first-phase recipients are Ngan Cheng Loong and Ng Boon Junn from the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering, according to the university announcement. Second-phase recipients are Liew Chia Pao, Tan Ji Siang, Ng Chuck Chuan, Syazwani Mohd Yusop and Sabirah Sulaiman.

Their work also covers resource recovery, climate resilience and sustainability education. The researchers come from energy and chemical engineering, marine sciences, and economics and management, giving the awards a scope beyond a single laboratory discipline.

What The Grant Programme Supports

The Higher Education Department's GET guidelines, hosted by Universiti Sains Malaysia, describe a programme intended to generate new knowledge rooted in Malaysia's context and improve existing processes or systems.

The document distinguishes exploratory research from transformative work. The exploratory route investigates problems or phenomena that are not yet well understood, with potential outputs such as hypotheses, new studies, basic understanding or conceptual frameworks.

The transformative route focuses on substantial changes to existing policies, operating procedures, processes or systems. Its expected outputs can include proof of concept or improvements to how an existing system works. These are research categories and objectives, rather than confirmation that a funded project has already delivered an operational solution.

The guidelines also set out assessment, governance, monitoring, expenditure and output requirements. A grant award begins a structured research commitment; subsequent progress and results need to be assessed separately from the initial funding decision.

Reading The Funding Figure

The combined award averages about RM149,614 per project when divided equally for comparison. That calculation does not indicate the amount received by each team: the announcement's total should not be read as seven identical grants.

Nor does a list of research subjects establish that products in those fields are ready for use. Clean energy and food safety are broad areas, and the project's methods, findings and applications will determine what each award ultimately contributes.

USM's national grants information page lists GET alongside other ministry schemes and provides links to application, patent-search, evaluation and return-of-value materials. That wider framework shows the administrative and assessment work surrounding research support, beyond the headline allocation.

For the university, the immediate achievement is securing funding across several academic teams and subjects. For readers assessing the wider benefit, later publications, project reports and demonstrated applications will provide different evidence from the awards announcement itself. The amount reported this week establishes the scale of support committed to this group of projects.