VCSP- Strategic Alliance With Top Notch Research Centres

I am personally glad to be appointed as the "Project Manager" by the university under the Vice Chancellor Special Project (VCSP Project) titled Strategic Alliance with Top Notch Research Centre. As a HICoE, ARI has been able to play a leading role in this project. Alhamdullillah, to date ARI has managed to secure two research collaborations: (1) A Management Accounting research with the Accounting Research Centre, National Taiwan University (NTU) and (2)A Non-Profit Organization Research with the International Centre of Political Violence & Terrorism Research of the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. We hope to produce meaningful spin-offs in the forms of international publications, joint-conferences and international linkages that will benefit all entities.

Alumni Publication Projects

For 2011, ARI hopes to collaborate with the UiTM Allumni Association and the Office of Deputy Vice Chancellor (student affairs & Allumni)of UiTM in two publications: (1) Who-and-Who of UiTM Allumni and (2) A year Book. A preliminary discussion has been held today between ARI (represented by me), the Allumni Association (represented by the VP Research) and the Deputy Vice Chancellor, We hope this project will take off in the first quarter of 2011 with our own Accountancy allumni. The team needs to define and agree on a scope to focus as it is almost impossible to write on all 400,000 UiTM alumni that the university has produced to date...

Dr Zuraidah's Visit to the University of Riau

ARI wishes to congratulate Associate Professor Dr Zuraidah Sanusi, Head of the Audit & Assurance Special Interest Group at ARI for the recent invitation she received from the University of Riau, Indonesia. Dr Zuraidah has been invited to share her expertise and experiences in conducting successful research projects in the areas of Auditing & Assurance.
One of her research products, AQuR or Audit Quality Rating is currently used by the Malaysian Institute of Accountants to evaluate the performance of Small and Medium Accounting Firms in Malaysia. She is also there to promote Accounting Research Institute.

Formation of The Society of Financial Criminologists

I was informed by some of our Master in Forensic Accounting & Financial Criminology graduates that they are planning to establish and register a new group of professional in forensic accounting. Tentatively it could be known as the Society of Financial Criminologists. In view of the increasing trend in financial fraud and financial crimes, Financial Criminologists are highly specialized professionals who are competent in fraud prevention, fraud investigation and fraud detection. ARI is willing to facilitate the group in making this vision realized in 2011. I was informed that Pakistan has just recently launched its Institute of Forensic Accountants. Perhaps, moving forward, Malaysia should also consider doing the same...

Thank You Prof Omar Masood

I wish to express my sincere thanks to Prof Omar Masood for his contributions as a visiting professor at ARI. He was visiting ARI and the university for two weeks and was involved with a lot of ARI activities. First was the seminar that ARI co-organized with IBFIM where he was the main facilitator. Then the workshop cum seminar that he and Prof Sofian from Trisakni University conducted for ARI staff and post graduate students. He was also involved as speaker for our International conference on Financial Criminology. In between these events was discussions with PhD students and lecturers to discuss papers that he co-authored. Finally, he was kind enough to attend our strategic planning retreat and to give talks on international grants, off-shore post graduate program and ARI international linkages. Thank you sir for your kind contributions.

ARI HICoE Research Progress Presentations

On the third day of ARI's Strategic Planning Retreat, researchers presented their progress reports. I was evaluating papers related to Islamic Financial Criminology. A total of twenty titles were presented by researchers in three parallel sessions. All in all the evaluators are fairly happy with the progress. A total of thirteen research projects have published at least a concept paper in international refereed journals. It is expected that by the next progress presentation in June 2011, researchers would be able to publish one paper with empirical findings in refereed journals. In addition, all researchers will need to present their research results at conferences that are indexed with Scopus or ISI Thomson.

Congratulations Excellence Award Receipients

I wish to congratulate all ARI and Faculty of Accountancy Excellence Award receipients 2010. They certainly deserved the award. Dr Intan Salwani, Dr Kalsom Salleh, Associate Professor Dr Asmah Abdul Aziz and Associate Prof Dr Lai Ming Ling received their awards today during the Innovation Day ceremony held at the Dewan Sri Budiman (DSB). The event was graced by the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Students Affairs and Alumni) YBhg Prof Dato' Dr Abdullah Said. In addition to the yearly excellence award recognition, the Faculty of Accountancy has also won the Vice Chancellor Quality awards for three (3) categories: Best Strategic Planning, Best Processes and Best Overall Achievements. Congratulations.

MITRANS MOHE Audit

Exactly two years ago, the Accounting Research Institute (ARI) underwent the MOHE HICoE audit. I remembered very well the anxiety that all members had to experience. Today, another university's CoE - the Malaysian Institute of Transport (MITRANS)has been shortlisted to go through similar audit. I was invited by MITRANS to attend the briefing session in the morning. As MITRANS has successfully passed the document audit, the assessors are here to validate on site all the documents that have been submitted earlier on. I hope MITRANS will join the bandwagon to become another HICoE (Service thrust) from the university. Good luck...

Islamic Finance & Muamalat Seminar

As speakers to the forthcoming ICFC 2010 conference on 14-15 December 2010, Prof Omar Masood from the University of East London and Prof Sofian from Trisakni University, Indonesia presented their papers today at a 1-day "pre-conference" seminar on Islamic Finance and Muamalat which was organized by the Accounting Research Institute. The audiences are mainly ARI/faculty staff and students. Premised on his own experiences, Omar advised participants to identify industry needs for each research project that they embarked on. it is through understanding such needs that research spin offs can be multiplied and it is much easier to get funding. Prof Sofian, in his own simple and practical illustrations, relate the concepts of Islamic accounting as a fraud deterrent mechanism.