KUALA LUMPUR: Universities should build partnerships with institutions, cities, and countries to turn knowledge into practical responses to shared challenges, including climate change, the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Nazrin Shah, said.
He said universities needed to bring together different disciplines and perspectives as the effects of climate change and technological transformation extended beyond national borders.
"If our challenges are shared in this way, then surely our knowledge must be shared as well. Our universities must therefore look outward, building partnerships across institutions, cities and nations.
"They must strive to become spaces where different disciplines meet and enrich each other, where diverse perspectives can be heard and appreciated, and where knowledge is consolidated in the service of our global society," Sultan Nazrin said when launching the book Univer-Cities Volume V: Combatting Existential Climate Change at Universiti Malaya (UM) here today.
Sultan Nazrin said the book examined issues ranging from water to the role of business, bringing together different perspectives on the challenge of climate change.
He said cities provided universities with questions and challenges to confront, giving academic work a sense of purpose and vitality.
"When this relationship is strong, knowledge does not remain confined within the walls of the university. Research finds its way into practice, breaking out of the ivory towers of intellectual pursuit.
"Ideas become innovation and knowledge becomes a force for the common good," Sultan Nazrin said.
Sultan Nazrin also welcomed the continuing development of the Univer-City vision at UM and in Kuala Lumpur, saying it was fitting for the university to host its next chapter as the institution marked 120 years of contribution to education, knowledge, and development in the region.
The Sultan said universities needed to preserve and pass on knowledge while continuing to renew it to meet present challenges, including rapid technological and geopolitical changes.
He said societies also needed to consider whether they had the collective wisdom to use scientific and technological capabilities ethically.
"We shall need science, certainly. We shall need innovation. But we shall also need judgement, imagination, dialogue, compassion, and the capacity to look beyond the immediate concerns of the present, to consider the fundamental moral questions that this moment presents us with.
"All are qualities that lie at the heart of the university as an institution, as they have throughout history," he said.
Sultan Nazrin said he hoped the new volume would encourage universities, cities, and leaders to think more boldly about the future and ensure that knowledge benefits the communities they serve.
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