Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) is an institution of higher education that produces human resources, experts and professionals in a variety of fields with the focus on the quality of graduates, quality of institutions, and quality of the overall system.

With the vision to strive to be an innovative university of global standing, UMS strives to achieve academic excellence and international recognition through its attention to learning and teaching, research and publications, social services and balance in knowledge specialization.

The university also prioritizes the personal growth of its students, resulting in greater innovation and productivity for the benefit of society and the nation as a whole. UMS is committed to education transformation to fulfill the core aspirations outlined in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2015–2025 (Higher Education) in preparing Malaysia’s youth to thrive in the complex and ever-changing future.

UMS has strived to attract, develop, and retain excellent talents. At present, UMS has more than 1200 academicians, where 483 are with PhD or its equivalent. Many of these highly committed and dedicated academics have published in high impact journal and won awards nationally and internationally as recognition of their research and innovation.

The most recent is the British Invention Show 2015, where two of our academicians won the Special Platinum Award: International Invention of The Year Award (Industrial) and Special Platinum Award: International Innovation of The Year Award (Consumer).Our academicians have also intensified their role as solution providers for industry and community. They have secured 16 Knowledge Transfer Grants (both industry and community categories) amounted to more than RM2.5 million since 2011.

UMS has recently been awarded as an Industry Centre of Excellent (ICoE) in Agriculture, a recognitions by the Ministery of Higher Education. UMS has moved from academia operating in insolation, to the quadruple helix of academia, industry, government, and local communities coming together in partnership for the incubation, development, and commercialization of ideas and innovation. The academicians have benefitted from a conducive, supportive, and meritocratic environment with better continuous professional development programs that enable them to meet changing responsibilities and expectations. Conjointly, our faculties have associates from the industries such as oil palm industry, food industry and many more. We complement the industry through our research, rather than competing with them.

UMS employs a holistic approach towards teaching and learning, where both theory and practice are equally emphasized to get the best out of students’ academic development. Our teaching and learning modules and niche areas of research are designed to impart knowledge of current issues and modern perspectives. UMS has committed to harness the power of online learning to widen access to good quality content and enhance the quality of teaching and learning.

It is the aspiration of UMS in developing more holistic and integrated curricula and enhancing the learning ecosystem for student development. UMS enriches and enhances the student learning experiences by expanding industry collaboration in the design and delivery of programs; conducting field works, industrial and community engagement, internship, structured internship and mobility programs either nationally or internationally to meet the growing and changing demands of industry, and promotes individual opportunities for career development.

In addition, UMS has instilled an entrepreneurial mindset throughout its curriculum and co-curriculum in order to produce graduates with a drive to create jobs, rather than to only seek jobs.

UMS has won the Best Career Development Centre for Public Universities presented by Talent Corporation at the 2015 Malaysia’s 100 Leading Graduate Employer Awards to attest the commitment of UMS in industry engagement towards increasing graduates employability. Different areas of expertise bring different perspectives and knowledge to each student, studying at UMS allows you to broaden your possibilities.

UMS with a total of ten faculties offers 64 bachelor programs in science, engineering, medical, food science, agriculture, forestry, arts, humanities, business, accounting and economics. Under the Ministry of Higher Education Star Rating project (MyMOHES), our university has achieved 5 star ranking (98%) and is currently second in the comprehensive university category. UMS is also ranked fourth in the top choice universities among Malaysia’s STPM/Matriculation/Foundation leavers. At present, UMS has more than 15,000 students enrolled in undergraduate programs and more than 2700 postgraduate students at the Masters and PhD levels.

UMS was recently ranked among the top 200 in QS World Ranking by Subject in Agriculture and Forestry.

UMS is one of the most beautiful university campuses in the country, with fascinating landscape, lush greeneries and impressive structures. Indeed, UMS is the only University in Malaysia with its own beach and jetty. Ever since its establishment, UMS has made consistent efforts to develop modern infrastructures while conserving the existing biota. Various academic and non-academic facilities such as highly-resourced libraries, high end teaching and research instruments and laboratories, multimedia laboratories, WiFi, internet and online facilities, sport centers and outdoor facilities, students’ centers and hostels are available to enrich the students’ varsity life. Several supporting offices and centers are established with efficient management to provide effective services and safe environment to students for a better and memorable campus life while enhancing effective learning experiences.

UMS is also among the key-player in contributing to the growth of learned and skilled human capital in the nation. So far, UMS graduates are more than 53,000 including international students from various countries such as China, Brunei, Iraq and Indonesia. Our alumni are working in many renowned organizations or as entrepreneur. UMS has inspired them by providing the needed environment for them to plan their career and equip themselves with the required knowledge and skills such as communication skills, critical thinking skills and language proficiency before entering the working world. In addition, our alumni had been taught to be ethically and morally upright, spiritually grounded and able to work across cultures.