The half-day workshop on Sumitomo grant application was held yesterday, Wednesday, 23 September 2020 at Seminar Room 1, Language Academy (DO5). The workshop was facilitated by Mr. Kumaraguru Ramayah (fondly referred to as our “Sensei Kumar”) and AP Dr. Abdul Halim Abdul Raof who had the experiences in applying for the grant. In fact, Sensei Kumar is the recipient of the grant in 2019.

Sensei Kumar and Dr Halim were listening to a presentation by the participant

During the workshop, Sensei Kumar and Dr. Halim shared with the participants some analysis done on successful projects. For instance, last year Malaysian HEIs submitted 225 applications, but only 10 proposals were accepted and approved. It was competitive indeed (with only 4.4.% success rate), but according to the facilitators it’s worth trying. Sensei Kumar succeeded in securing the grant after three attempts himself.

Some of the tips given during the workshop

Among the tips shared by Sensei Kumar and Dr. Halim:

1. Always look into the details.
2. Make sure there’s no careless mistake, e.g. follow strictly the Japanese way of writing the dates.
3. The title of the proposal must include “Japan” or “Japanese” i.e. it must be Japanese related research.
4. Avoid “regular research”.
5. Budget wise, it it suggested within 0.2-1million Yen.
6. Group members must be between 3-4 researchers.
7. The concept of research project must be presented in diagram.
8. Methodology must be in point-form.
9. The summary needs to be translated to Japanese.
10. PI needs to contact his/her Japanese collaborator for consent.
11. Letter of recommendation must be included; RMC will assist on this.