The grant covers both R&D. All scientific and engineering researches are beneficial to the local E&E industry are included. However not all development activities fit in. Examples of development activities which may be covered by the grant are technology development, system simulation/modelling development, and proof of concept development to demonstrate findings discovered in the research. Examples of development activities not covered by the grant are pre-commercialisation product development or product prototyping which are specific to the companies involved.

Local E&E industry sector in Malaysia refers to commercial activities in the entire span of supply-chain of E&E sector within the country. The intended research areas may address scientific or engineering challenges which enables new or improved product development or manufacturing process of the product.

Software development could be one of the area supported by the grant depending on the exact nature of the research area. Developing software application for commercial purpose may not fall into the supported area because it is a commercialisation activity benefiting specific company only rather than E&E industry. Developing new algorithm, tool, protocol, method or technique that address specific challenges with a level of innovation worthy of Masters or PhD degree, could fall into the area supported by the grant.

Factory automation project per se is not within the scope supported by the grant because it is benefiting specific company only rather than E&E industry. Applicant is advised to look into specific research work within factory automation which could fall within the scope and submit application accordingly. For example, developing faster, better and error-free technique and tool to migrate PLC-based to embedded-based equipment could be within the scope supported by the grant.

The project leader does not have to be a Malaysian citizen if there is another individual – who is a Malaysian citizen – takes the role of principal investigator. If the project leader and principal investigator is the same person, then he/she must be a Malaysian citizen.
Both project leader and principal investigator have to be Malaysian only when they are registered student researchers paid by CREST grant, or post-doc researchers whose allowances are paid by CREST grant.

Either project leader or principal investigator should be Malaysian citizen, and project leader should not be the post graduate student involved in the project. In the event that project leader and principal investigator is the same person, he or she must be Malaysian citizen and must not be a post graduate student.

The research project leader or principal investigator may come from either academia or industry. In other words, the project leader may be university faculty members, post-doctorate researcher, company employees or company managers, as long as they are not a student in the project. And the principal investigator may be university faculty members, post-doctorate researcher, company employees or company managers, or postgraduate student.

Full-time post-graduate student researchers and full-time post-doctorate researchers whose allowance are paid by CREST R&D Grant must be Malaysian citizen. Malaysian citizen is defined according to nationality law in the Constitution of Malaysia achieved through registration or naturalisation, indicated by the presence of Malaysian blue identity card. It does not extend to those holding permanent resident status.

Any postgraduate student can be a research team member. However only Malaysian full-time student (not an employee) is eligible to receive tuition fee and student allowance using CREST grant. There is no restriction if participating company or university wishes to provide allowance to students who is an employee of a university.

The approved budget may be less than the requested budget per the recommendation of the evaluation panel. Once the research project and its budget are approved, CREST is committed to disburse the money per the approved amount as stated in the Research Grant Agreement (RGA). Likewise, per the RGA, if the research is not delivering per the committed milestones and other deliverables, CREST may suspend or terminate the funding if the research is not making committed progress.

Yes the student researchers whom allowance are paid by CREST R&D Grant can register to a mix-mode programme. However, the project lead is advised to evaluate if this is appropriate or beneficial for the research itself and if so, properly reflect students’ constraint in the research project plan as appropriate.

Yes they can. However CREST grant award cannot be backdated to pay for the tuition fee and allowance from the time they registered until the time the research project is approved to commence.

Yes they can when this is a planned scenario. The research project plan should reflect that allowance for the students correspond to their join date at a later time. However, if this is a schedule delinquency scenario, it has to be treated per the project monitoring process and project change process.

There are no preset criteria (e.g. impact factor) for the journal or conference. Researchers are recommended to choose the ones which bring value to their respective organisations and build reputation to the Malaysian E&E R&D ecosystem.

Student researchers whose allowance are paid by CREST R&D Grant are required by CREST to sign a student agreement with CREST, university, and/or industry partner.

The approved research projects are ones which are expected to bring great benefits to the company and to the industry as stipulated in the application. The said benefit may not necessarily be in the form of commercialisation upon completion of the project. If the research findings are potential, researchers must make effort to plan for implementation and commercialisation in their future work.

There is no pre-set limit to the total requested budget for each application. Each application is advised to request for budget that is proportionate to the size and scope of the research.

Take note however that each line item may have its own limit. For example student allowance, travelling and equipment/software rental may have their own limit; please refer to the terms and conditions. Each requested line item which is deemed inappropriate may be cut, or not approved.

CREST grant does not have its own tax provision. Existing tax provision applies to the company, university and personnel involved in the research project.

Yes. It is compulsory for collaborative research to have industry partner(s) with at least 50% contribution to the total research project cost (for CREST Open R&D Grant) for the application to be accepted for evaluation.

The project leader must inform CREST if any of the team member intents to leave the project. The university or company must assess the project team ability to deliver upon the departure of that team member and shall provide a qualified replacement member to complete the project, if required.

Industry contribution to the research can take many forms as long as they can be substantiated and auditable. The total financial value of the contribution shall be >50% of the total research cost (for CREST Open R&D Grant). Among possible forms of industry contributions are:

• Cash contribution to purchase equipment, software, material etc. for the research;
• Cash contribution to pay tuition fee/allowance to post graduate researchers;
• Training fee for researchers necessary to conduct the research;
• Conference fee or conference travel to support producing paper as part of the deliverable obligation;
• Contribution in kind: Financial value of equipment usages for the research;
• Contribution in kind: Financial value of employees’ time working on the research.

Interested parties from either academia or industry are highly encouraged to expand their networking from which they can explore possibility for partnership. History shows that such networking could result to business dealing, recruitment/internship arrangement, research sponsorship, and many other types of collaboration beyond collaborative research for CREST funding.

Industry and academia are welcomed to express their area of interest to CREST from which CREST could, on best effort basis, match make, or provide contact information of parties having similar interest. Industry and academia may also participate in Cluster Programs facilitated by CREST. Contact CREST R&D Secretariat for more information.

The R&D Grant is intended to incentivize collaborative research which will make impact to R&D ecosystem in E&E sector. Business-driven companies which are part of the sector are accepted as industry partner regardless of the ownership or shareholder of the company. They may be owned by the government or government entities, local public-listed company, local SME, or foreign owned. However they may not be owned by the university involved in the project. They do not have to be CREST member companies during grant application.

However, although operating as a company, government-link research institutions may not be considered as companies that are part of E&E industry sector. These research institutions may however participate in the funded research as additional but not as sole partner.

A faculty member working with engineers working at a foreign company does not fit into the funded collaboration mode because it is at individual level rather than at organizational level, and because it does not involve company registered in the country. The funded collaborative research must involve at least one company registered in Malaysia pairing with at least one university located in Malaysia.

NO. There is no limit on the number of applications a company/university can submit.

NO. There is also no limit on the number of approved projects a company/university can participate in.

YES. A project leader, or in short, “Project Lead” may lead only one approved project at a time.

A research project may produce several intellectual properties (IP).

For CREST Open R&D Grant: The ownership of the IPs needs to be determined among the university and company participating in the research. Legal teams from academia and industry need to determine which IPs to be owned by which party, either in full or in percentage of ownership. It is desired that this arrangement be agreed to as precondition to signing the RGA.

For CREST Targeted R&D Grant: IP is shared between CREST, the company and the university. CREST holds the IP rights and the researchers share on trust.

Two types of risks will be evaluated; research execution risk and technical risk.

Research execution risk refers to the risk of executing the research according to the stated plan. In other words it is the risk the research is not able to meet its schedule, cost and deliverable obligations. CREST favors research proposal with low execution risk.

Technical risk refers to the technical complexity of the research itself. In other words it is the risk the research work is not able to answer research questions or meet research objectives. CREST favors funding various degree of technically challenging and risky science and engineering researches.

Reason for decline will not be provided. You are encouraged to contact CREST R&D Secretariat to arrange for a session to discuss on the reason of decline.

You will receive either an email or a letter with the result of the application approximately 4 months after the closing date of the grant.

Each application is assessed based on three main criteria:- Strategic fit, Technical Merit, and Operational Merit. Criteria ratings are Excellent, Very Good, Good, or Insufficient.

An application will be shortlisted only if it has the following ratings:

• Excellent or Very Good for Strategic fit, AND
• Excellent or Very Good for Technical Merit, AND
• Excellent or Very Good for Operational Merit.

The evaluation panel is NOT made up of “permanently” appointed evaluators who will remain in the panel for all grant cycles. For every grant cycle, a panel of evaluators will be “freshly” appointed depending on the domain knowledge required based on the applications received. And depending on each evaluator’s expertise and experience, an evaluator will be appointed to evaluate and provide recommendations for either a selected number of applications (relevant to his/her expertise) or all applications if suitable.

CREST R&D Secretariat maintains a list of recommended, willing, reputable and carefully vetted individuals from both academia and industry. These individuals must have respected qualifications and experience in their field. CREST accepts self-nomination from individuals with the above qualities to be considered as part of the evaluation panellists for future grant cycles. Please contact the R&D Secretariat for more information.

From Feb 2013 onwards, the CREST EXCO had already been formally transitioned to become the CREST Board of Directors. The CREST Board of Directors (BOD) consists of representatives from industry, university and government agencies/departments.

Although using existing software or equipment does not require new budget request, it should be declared in Section D of the application form to indicate the full picture of the research cost. Using existing software or equipment provided by the company also counts towards company contribution to the research, and this therefore necessitates declaration in the budget spreadsheet.

Equipment or software provided or paid by the company counts towards company contribution to the research and is an important part of the research funding. This needs to be declared in the budget spreadsheet in the application form so that it can be appropriately audited and tracked.

Contribution in-kind can take many forms.

Refer to above: Question 20 “How is 50% industry contribution defined?”

Employee’s time working in the research project can be captured as part of company contribution. In the budget spreadsheet, the employee’s name and number of hours spent should be included in the first expense category “Allowance and Fee”. In the company contribution column, the amount that should be put is a fraction of his salary (20%) times total number of months involved. Take note that supporting document indicating his salary, which can be represented by company’s average burden rate should be included.

Contingency budget request will not be approved. The application should comprehend unexpected event in the form of assumptions and risk in the research project plan. The basis of cost estimate and assumptions should be clearly noted. Additionally, risk statement related to cost should also be clearly captured in the research project plan. Upfront declaration of assumption and risk will help provide justification for a budget change request throughout the course of research project execution.

There is no limit to the number of applications a person can submit. The number of applications which can be awarded to the same submitter or project lead however will depend on the evaluation.

One of the deliverable obligation is to produce at least one graduating Malaysian student (Master or PhD). Depending on the scope and complexity of the research project, a research may have additional students, which can be Master or PhD students or combination. Additional students may also be non-Malaysian citizen, although CREST pays student allowance and tuition fee to Malaysian students only. Take note that evaluation panel will evaluate to ensure the number of students commensurate with the scope and complexity of the research project.

Continuation of relationship: The proposed research can involve university and company who are currently partners in other types of collaborative work or those who are currently not in any relationship. The grant can be used to continue or enhance existing relationship, or to build new relationship.

Continuation of topic: Huge problem statement may be broken down into several research parts. One of those parts may be submitted for CREST R&D Grant application as long as it can stand on its own merit. Each proposal submitted to CREST is evaluated without reference to preceding or other research parts.

Continuation of IP: University and company partners are advised to discuss and achieve agreement related to payment for license or permission to use an existing intellectual property obtained from preceding research. Take note that grant money cannot be used to pay for IP license.

NO.

Research team composition must be stated as requested in the application. Students who are not yet identified can be stated using placeholder “student 1”, “student 2”, etc. It is important to identify the expected role, responsibility and work scope for each to-be-hired students even though they are no on board yet.

Graduate Research Assistance Scholarship Program (GRASP) is supplementary to CREST R&D Grant, therefore its approval is tied to the approval of CREST R&D Grant application. There is no specific application needed. Upon approval of CREST R&D Grant application, GRASP will be offered by default, provided that the student candidate meets the stipulated requirement. In the application of CREST R&D Grant, basic student allowance rate should be used (RM1.8k/month for MSc, RM2.5k/month for PhD).

Graduate Research Assistance Scholarship Program (GRASP) is offered to those who meet the CGPA and working experience requirement. The student needs to sign a separate agreement to give commitment to stay in the research project throughout the entire research duration with additional deliverable obligation. The performance of the student will also be reviewed from time to time.

CREST welcomes any feedback and will continue to look for opportunity to improve its R&D Grant process while maintaining the objective of good governance and oversight. Therefore the process may be changed from cycle to cycle. Prospective applicants are advised to attend briefing for the cycle they intend to submit since it may differ from past cycle.

It should be captured in the assumptions and risks, and dealt with according to risk response plan when the event occurs.

All project leads of approved research will be called for a briefing on project monitoring process and project change process. The approval of the change request shall be subjected to the conditions as stipulated in the said process. The process will be posted on CREST website at a later time.

The research project plan in the application submission should state the risk of the research project and the response plan regardless of the risk level. These risk statements are used by the evaluation panel to evaluate operational merit. Evaluation panel needs to understand and be convinced that the proposal submitter understands the risks of the project and ready to respond to those risks. Not stating the risks that exist may indicate that the proposal is weak and risky for CREST to fund. On the other hand, declaring risks with good response plan may indicate that the proposal is strong with acceptable risk for CREST to fund.

A research project funded through CREST R&D Grant can start beginning the effective date of MOA. The effective date of the MOA also indicates the time when the first disbursement of the grant money. Sufficient time should be budgeted for MOA discussion and finalisation to take place; based on past experience this may take at least 3 months.

The following guideline should be followed as guideline in preparing for schedule. Application made in the first cycle (Jan) should have October of the same year as the start date. Application made in the second cycle (July) should have April the following year as the start date.

Only software and equipment purchased using CREST money will belong to CREST. The software or equipment contributed by the company or university still belong to the respective parties.

Typically CREST will appoint software hosting provider to host common software purchased using CREST money so that its access can be shared. The software could be accessed by remote. Exception to this will be evaluation on case by case basis.

The equipment purchased using CREST money can be placed at the location nominated by the research team. It may be located at the university or one of the company participating in the research.

Upon approval of the CREST R&D Grant application, each project lead will be asked the detail of the grant request. Project lead will need to identify the location of the disbursement for each of the line item in a quarterly breakdown. Disbursement will be made at the beginning of the quarter to the nominated location, which can be the university or the company participating in the research. Project lead will be asked to provide the bank account number of the company and university involved in the project. Typically student allowance and tuition fee is only paid to the university.

In deciding the location of disbursement of each item, the project team is advised to consider among others the location of the research, accounting process and limitation, procurement process and processing timeline.

The disbursement is made at the beginning of each quarter, namely the first week of January, April, July, and October. Take note that the disbursement for a given quarter is made based on the performance of preceding quarter – evaluated during quarterly project review.

All project leads of approved projects will be called for a briefing on the process to make sure MOA is completed. Basically, CREST will prepare a draft or template MOA which will be given to the project leader. He/she will need to ensure legal team from the university and company involved get together to discuss whether to accept the draft, or propose changes which both parties can agree to, and bring back this proposed changes to CREST legal for final buy off. CREST prints the final copies of the tripartite MOA for project leader to circulate for signature from the highest authority for the companies involved (typically CEO or Managing Director), and the highest authority for the universities involved (typically Vice Chancellor), before signed by CREST CEO.

NO. The project lead is expected to have proper planning to execute the entire research project including completion of deliverable obligations, within the stipulated time.

The research within the originally approved scope should be completed per commitment. The additional/new scope should be submitted as new research project proposal which will go through separate evaluation and budget.

Inability to complete within the stipulated time or inability to fulfill the deliverable obligation will result to penalty per the MOA. The project lead is expected to monitor the progress throughout the research project and take steps to detect problem and take remedial action to recover. CREST R&D Secretariat will be monitoring to ensure the project lead remains in control of his/her project. The Secretariat may also initiate appropriate action that may include suspension or termination of the fund.

Sufficient pre work should be done to determine the best methodology to achieve the intended research objectives. A research project with inappropriate research methodology should have not been approved in the first place. Change of research methodology is a major change and is treated as change of research plan.

Sufficient pre work should be done to determine the appropriate level of study for a given research scope and complexity. The university may at its discretion approve upgrading of student status from Master to PhD throughout the research project. As far as deliverable obligation to CREST is concerned, graduation of PhD student can be a substitute to graduation of Master student. Take note however that student allowance will remain at what Master student is qualified per the effective MOA. Request for change of student allowance will be treated as change request which needs to go through change request process.

All project leads of approved research will be called for a briefing on project monitoring process and project change process. The approval of the change request shall be subjected to the conditions as stipulated in the said process. Take note that there will be a processing fee for any change request.