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| UM is stepping up efforts to internationally recruit renowned scholars and increase research funding |
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| Core members of UM’s microelectronics research team (from left): Prof. U Seng Pan, Prof. Rui Martins, and Dr. Mak Pui In |
In recent years, the University of Macau (UM) is going all out to reform its teaching and research, with its achievements gaining recognition from the academic circles both at home and abroad. The period from 2006 to 2010 is an important stage in UM’s history. During this period the university experienced progress in leaps and bounds, as reflected in the markedly improved quality of its teaching and research.
From 2006 to 2010, student enrolments increased from 5707 to 7244, up 26.9%; the number of undergraduate students increased from 4529 to 5436, up 20%; the number of master’s students increased from 1113 to 1601, up 43.8%; the number of PhD students increased from 65 to 207, up 218%. Research-wise, UM also did impressively well. According to statistics released by the ISI Web of Science (WOS), UM has ranked No. 1 in Macao for many years in both the citation frequency of research papers and the number of published papers, and it is still progressing steadily in terms of paper citation frequency. So far 848 papers by UM members have been included in WOS, with the citation frequency exceeding 1700. From 2006 to the present, UM members published 129 academic works, 420 book chapters and 1779 journal papers. Many of the papers were presented at international conferences and received outstanding paper awards. These pleasing results are testament to UM’s constant pursuit of innovation and excellence in research.
With the steady improvement of its teaching and research quality, UM is increasing its teaching staff members through international recruitment. From 2006 to the present, the number of its teaching staff members increased from 354 to 434. The addition includes eight chair professors recruited in the past two years, 12 full professors, 30 associate professors, and 62 assistant professors. To enhance the overall quality of the teaching staff, UM has stepped up efforts to launch a teaching staff development programme, including the implementation of an evaluation and reward system for teaching staff, inviting overseas experts to review the current promotion mechanism, granting sabbatical leaves to teaching staff, recruiting chair professors, and so on.
Once the construction of the new campus is complete, UM will have a much better environment with world-class facilities. The improved facilities and the system-wise reform, such as the implementation of a new pedagogical model, which consists of four components (disciplinary education, general education, research and internship education, and community and peer education), will combine to allow UM to produce well-rounded graduates for Macao and China and become a first-rate university with excellence in teaching and research.
(This article was published in the Macao Daily News at B03 on 11 November, 2010)
