President’s Welcoming Address

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Professor Sibrandes Poppema

A warm welcome to Sunway University, Malaysia’s leading, not-for-profit private university, dedicated to quality education, research focused on key global problems under the umbrella of Planetary Health and the Sustainable Development Goals, and supporting innovation and entrepreneurship. The University is based in Sunway City, a thriving green resort and digital smart city built on reclaimed former tin-mining land, on the western side of Kuala Lumpur in the heart of the Klang Valley. The University was established in 2011 and is relatively young by global standards, but already ranked within the top 2% of universities in the world (QS World University Rankings), in the top 1.5% of universities in Asia, as well as in the top 150 universities in the world under 50 years old.

Our state-of-the-art modern campus is connected to a wide range of social and community amenities and student residences by safe walkways at tree top level (the “canopy walk”) giving a unique sustainable study, work and social environment for our students and staff on campus and around Sunway City. Sunway City is a prime example of the new global movement of sustainable “fifteen-minute cities” with hyper-connectivity and all amenities accessible within 15 minutes by walking. Close by the campus and connected via the canopy walkway we have the Sunway Lagoon Theme Park, the Sunway Pyramid Mall (one of the largest in the world), and the Sunway Medical Centre, one of the largest and best equipped private hospitals in Southeast Asia giving world class medical care, and a prize-winning medical tourism destination.

The University has a 5-star “excellent” rating by the Malaysian government (in the latest Setara assessment exercise), and is one of just fifteen universities in Malaysia to be awarded the special “Premier Digital Technology Institution” status. We have developed close collaborations with leading international universities including Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, MIT, and the University of Oxford. Some professors from these universities hold distinguished visiting appointments giving occasional lectures to our University and the wider Sunway City community through our Jeffrey Cheah Distinguished Speakers series of public lectures. These are named after the founder of Sunway City and of the University, Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah, who is also the chairman of Sunway Group, one of Malaysia’s leading industrial conglomerates and developer of Sunway City. We have a very close relationship with Lancaster University in the UK, enabling our students on many programmes to also qualify for Lancaster degrees.

So welcome to a globally connected, forward looking university, dedicated to sustainability, and located in one of the most exciting campus destinations on the planet in the warm heart of tropical sunny Malaysia.

Professor Sibrandes Poppema

President