Science and innovation

The Science and Innovation section is part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s global Science and Innovation Network.  It is co-ordinated by the FCO Science and Innovation Group (SIG) that is based in London and works closely with other colleagues including British Council and the UK Trade and Investment.

UK-Malaysia Partners in Science, Partners of Choice

The UK-Malaysia Partners in Science initiative began in 2007 as part of the year-long “Malaysia & UK: Forward Together” campaign to celebrate alongside Malaysia’s 50th anniversary of independence.  This has since been converted into a long-term strategic programme with a specific aim to maintain strong ties between the two nations by focusing on strengths and mutual interests in education, science, and innovation.  

The Science and Innovation Network organises its work against the following objectives:

• facilitating scientific collaboration between UK and Malaysia and developing a sustainable UK-Malaysia S&I partnership;

• promoting the UK as the international partner of choice for science and technology collaboration by raising public awareness of its S&I strengths and achievements.

• engaging in S&I activities regionally in partnership with the Singapore SIN team to consolidate UK’s position as the global leader in S&I within South-East Asia.

• providing information to UK stakeholders on developments on the science and technology front in Malaysia

• working closely with our UK Trade and Investment team to promote inward investment and trade through the identification of mutually beneficial commercial opportunities for UK science and innovations.

To achieve the above, there is a dedicated Science and Innovation Officer based in Kuala Lumpur who will be organising a series of events in 2009 to bring Malaysian and British teams together to work towards scientific solutions to the challenges we face.