Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim
Assalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
and a very good afternoon.
Yang Mulia Datin Paduka Professor Dr. Dayang Hajah Zohrah binti Haji Sulaiman, Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Teknologi Brunei;
Ms. Miura Keiko, Deputy Chief of Mission on behalf of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Brunei Darussalam;
Prof. Emeritus Dr. Hideaki Ohgaki, representing the Japan-ASEAN Science, Technology and Innovation Platform;
Distinguished speakers, organisers, ladies and gentlemen.
1. It is a pleasure to be here today at the closing of Bridging Borders with Science, Technology and Innovation: Building Effective International Research Collaboration — and to do so at Universiti Teknologi Brunei as it marks four decades since its founding in 1986. Forty years on, UTB has grown from a technical institute into the nation’s technological university, and the choice to host this workshop here, at this moment, is a fitting one.
2. Let me begin by acknowledging the strategic significance of what has been accomplished in this room over the past two days. The skills addressed — STI coordination, project design, access to funding, and structured programme management — are precisely the capabilities ASEAN has identified as the binding constraints on translating regional research ambition into regional research outcomes.
A Decade of ASEAN STI Cooperation: Taking Stock
3. The work of this workshop sits within a much larger architecture. The ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Science, Technology and Innovation (AMMSTI) and the ASEAN Committee on Science, Technology and Innovation (COSTI) have for the past decade guided the implementation of the ASEAN Plan of Action on Science, Technology and Innovation (APASTI) 2016–2025. That plan set six goals: among them, an innovation-driven economy, active R&D collaboration and a network of centres of excellence, enhanced mobility of scientists and researchers, and the use of STI to address grand challenges.
4. As APASTI 2016–2025 now concludes, we can point to genuine progress. The ASEAN Science and Technology Network in the region has matured. The ASEAN Science, Technology and Innovation Fund has supported regional priority projects. Public-private collaboration, talent mobility, and STI enculturation have moved from aspiration to active programme areas. And critically, COSTI’s Dialogue Partner relationships have deepened with Japan standing out as one of ASEAN’s most substative STI partners.
5. The ASEAN-Japan partnership deserves particular recognition. Through the Japan-ASEAN Science, Technology and Innovation Platform (JASTIP) launched in 2015, ASEAN and Japan built a decade-long programme of joint research across environment and energy, bioresources and biodiversity, and disaster prevention and risk reduction. JASTIP-Net, developed in collaboration with ASEAN partners, has opened these networks to researchers across all member states. The Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund continues to underwrite capacity-building work. Continued engagement with Japan, underscores the importance both governments and ASEAN attaches to this trajectory.
APASTI 2026–2035: A More Demanding Agenda
6. We now stand at the threshold of the next decade. APASTI 2026–2035 — endorsed at AMMSTI-21 in Jakarta in June 2025 — sets a more ambitious agenda. It is framed around mission-driven STI collaboration and identifies priority sectors that will shape ASEAN’s resilience and competitiveness: advanced agriculture, food and forestry; energy transition; the blue and circular economy; space; and emerging technologies including artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure.
7. What APASTI 2026–2035 asks of member states is consequential. It assumes that each member state can contribute meaningfully to mission-driven projects, can absorb and apply foresight outputs, and can connect its national STI ecosystem to regional and Dialogue Partner platforms. For larger ASEAN economies, this is a continuation of existing capacity. For Brunei Darussalam, it is both an opportunity and a challenge that we must address honestly.
The Brunei Position: Gaps and Goals
8. Let me now speak candidly about where Brunei stands. Our Global Innovation Index 2025 ranking sits in the lower-middle band. National R&D intensity — gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP — remains well below the levels of our regional peers. Our challenges include a comparatively small research workforce, as well as a narrow private-sector R&D footprint which are concentrated in a few sectors. Addtionally, our institutional connectivity to regional and global STI networks, while improving, is still developing.
9. Closing the gap will require Brunei to do three things in parallel: raise the level and quality of public R&D investment over the coming decade; broaden private-sector participation in research and innovation; and make our research institutions genuinely interoperable with the regional and international platforms that APASTI 2026–2035 is built upon. Towards this, the Council for Reasearch and Advancement of Technology and Science (CREATES) of Brunei through the Ministry of Transport and Infocommunications is currently formulating a National STI Framework that will map our STI future journey.
The Role of Local Universities
10. Local universities are central to all three. As the producers of research talent, the operators of laboratories and centres of excellence, the principal interface with international research partners, and increasingly the partners of industry, our universities are where Brunei’s STI ambition will either be realised or stall.
11. I would highlight two priorities for our local universities in this regard. First, deepening institutional engagement with regional networks — AUN, AUN/SEED-Net, JASTIP-Net, and the COSTI subsidiary bodies — so that Brunei researchers are present, by default, in the consortia that win regional and international funding. Second, working more deliberately with industry, government, and the MSME sector to identify research questions that have demand on the other side, so that R&D investment translates into productivity, jobs, and exports.
12. UTB, in particular, as our technological university, is well-placed to lead in applied research, industry collaboration, and engineering capacity-building — and the strong representation of UTB in the ASEAN-Japan STI Coordination programmes is a sign of that potential being realised.
Closing
13. Before I conclude, I would like to place on record my sincere appreciation to Universiti Teknologi Brunei, the ASEAN University Network, JASTIP, AUN/SEED-Net, JICA, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency, as well as all speakers and organisers, for their commitment and close cooperation in advancing capacity-building efforts that support Brunei’s national aspirations and ASEAN’s regional ambitions in science, technology and innovation.
14. To the participants — researchers, administrators, and coordinators — your role in the next decade is more concrete than it may feel today. APASTI 2026–2035 will be implemented through people like you. The funding mechanisms you have learned to navigate, the proposals you are now equipped to write, the partners you have met in this room — these are the building blocks of Brunei’s contribution to the ASEAN STI ecosystem over the next ten years. I encourage you to carry that responsibility forward with purpose.
15. With that, it gives me great pleasure to officially declare the Training Workshop Bridging Borders with STI: Building Effective International Research Collaboration closed.
Thank you.
Wabillahi taufik walhidayah,
Wassalamualaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh.
