ECS joins University dignitaries for Malaysia Campus opening celebration

Representatives from Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) will join other dignitaries to celebrate the formal opening of the University of Southampton Malaysia Campus this week.

Professor Peter Smith, Associate Dean Enterprise; Professor Neil White, Head of ECS; Professor Mark Zwolinski, Director of Programmes in ECS; and Dr Mark French, Electrical and Electronic Engineering Programme Leader, will be in Malaysia to see Adrian Newey, Southampton alumnus and record-breaking Formula One engineer, officially launch the new campus on March 21.

Adrian earned a First Class honours degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Southampton in 1980 and is now Chief Technical Officer of the Infiniti Red Bull Racing Formula One team. He has won more Formula One Constructors’ Championships than any other designer in the sport’s history.

The ECS team will be joined by special guests from Malaysia’s Ministry of Higher Education, the Iskandar Regional Development Agency and Iskandar Investment Berhad for the ceremony at the EduCity@Iskandar, in South Johor.

The occasion is especially significant for ECS as they will be offering a new degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) in Malaysia later this year.

ECS recently introduced the new degree that combines its academics’ long experience in teaching excellent electrical engineering and electronic engineering programmes into a unifying MEng degree in EEE.

The first two years of the MEng programme will be available at the new Malaysia Campus before the students transfer to Southampton to complete their course.

Professor Peter Smith said: “It is very exciting to be involved in the opening of the University of Southampton’s first overseas campus and our new EEE degree course. It will provide us with a great opportunity to be able to bring together electronics and electrical engineering in a way we haven’t done before and will be a new and exciting option for students.

“As well as offering the course in Malaysia we will also be running it at our Southampton campus and it is already proving popular with undergraduate applications in the UK.”

The University of Southampton Malaysia Campus welcomed its first students last September who enrolled on the University’s world-renowned degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Professor John McBride, Chief Executive Officer of the Malaysia Campus, said: “The University’s vision is to establish an engineering campus in Malaysia, to form close links with other partners in the region, and to attract high-quality undergraduate and postgraduate students from Malaysia, Indonesia and across the whole of the South East Asia Region.

“In particular, high-performance is a core part of the new campus curriculum and we’re particularly proud to have one of our high-performance graduates in Adrian Newey join us for this special occasion.”

Adrian, who is in Malaysia preparing for the country’s Formula One Grand Prix, said: “It is my great pleasure to support the University of Southampton for the formal opening of its Malaysia Campus. My degree from Southampton has certainly assisted me in my career and helped me develop, which I believe will also be true for Southampton’s future graduates in Malaysia and the UK.”

Find out more about the EEE degree.

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