Partnership & Commercialisation

Swinburne Sarawak signed an agreement with the Sarawak Forestry Corporation to guide the development of Kubah national park's service model.

Swinburne will be examining best practices in park-recreational management models, which keeps a good balance between recreation and environment. They will look at practice models of successful parks with similar environmental conditions as Kubah and will then generate applicable criteria.

The recommendations will then be localised to include the indigenous communities living around the park.

Swinburne Sarawak signed an agreement with PUSTAKA Sarawak to conduct a study on the information-seeking behaviour among state civil servants in urban and rural areas of Sarawak. 

This project will develop a framework that can explain the information-seeking behavior of the state civil servants in the urban and rural areas of Sarawak. The findings of this research will assist to reveal the needs, use and challenges of seeking information among the state civil servants of Sarawak.

After a clearer understanding, the results of the research will be used to suggest a way forward for the provision of information to the state civil service.

Recent research has shown how chemical fertilisers seep into the ground and the importance of using bio-fertilisers as a sustainable alternative.

Microbes are the key player in soil nutrient turnover and crucial in ensuring that the soil remains productive and is able to sustain large trees and lush vegetation.

The conversion of forest into agricultural land unfortunately results in the change or loss of this microbial diversity. A partnership was established in 2015 with the Sarawak Forestry Corporation and Sarawak Timber Association to harness and preserve the natural microbial biodiversity and deliver them back to the soil by means of a bio-fertiliser so that it can sustain plant diversity. Another company, Daitoku Sdn. Bhd is also collaborating on this research with a slight tweak in the results; mainly to develop a sustainable bio-fertiliser for the oil-palm industry.

Our engineering research is making waves with its green technology. This research uses a particular bacteria, namely, Sporosarcina pasteurii, which produces a lot of enzymes to bind soil particles and increase its strength. The technique used, Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation makes it possible to produce pavement blocks suitable for pedestrian pavements and residential driveways. Swinburne Sarawak is partnering up with a global geotechnical company, Bachy Soletanche, to see how we can further increase the strength of the blocks.

Swinburne Sarawak and JKR Sarawak's newly opened Research Centre will work together in knowledge exchange and creation around constructing on soft soil. Swinburne's Engineering faculty will share its research and development, engage in capacity building, and JKR will facilitate industrial training for Swinburbe's students.

An immediate project is developing a set of construction and design guidelines for building on soft river banks. The research experiments for this will be carried out at the technologically advanced Geotechnical Centrifuge Lab at the National University of Singapore. The starting point is that constructing in soft soil has to work with the elements, transporting from barges or pipes instead of bringing in heavy machines on soft soil.