During a briefing with the SBEHS committee on my first day (1 Aug), the School’s chairman mentioned about UTM-Encouragement Research (UTM-ER) grant application opportunity for new academic staff like me. However, the deadline is just around the corner (5 Aug). To be eligible for application, I have to be in one of the research groups and register under the Research Alliance management. On Aug 4th, I was still waiting to complete registration under Research Group and Research Alliance. Thankfully, I completed the registration a day before the deadline after I made a call to the BionInspira Research Group’s leader. He granted his signature, signifying that I am part of the BioInspira team. Then, Mr. Chew (he’s really helpful, do contact him if you having any problem with the technical part of the grant application) from Pejabat TNC P&I promptly assisted me to register under the Frontier Materials research alliance and made me eligible to apply for the grant on the RADIS webpage. Regarding the research grant, I am grateful that Prof. Ir. Ts. Dr. Athif from SKE was willing to guide my application, and I wrote the application swiftly on the deadline. Lucky me, I knew Prof. Athif when we met several times on a few occasions during my PhD in Japan while he was doing a postdoc at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.
Then, I got information from a chat group advertising another grant application for new staff called ATU-Net Young Researcher Grant 2021. When I knew about this, the deadline of the application was also approaching (14 Aug). This time, I have a few days to work on the grant and need to include at least 3 members in the grant from ATU-member college to meet the grant’s requirement. As the deadline was closing soon, I contacted Prof. Athif again and asked him a favor to introduce me to a few individuals and include them as part of the grant member. Alhamdulillah, a day before the submission deadline, I uploaded the grant application to the webpage system, and hopefully, good news will come out of it.
So, if you’re looking for an opportunity to further your study on biomaterials/drug delivery research, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me as I will need a hand to run the project if these applications are made through.