Prime Minister David Cameron visits the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus

Prime Minister David Cameron visits the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus

Prime Minister David Cameron visited the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham’s Malaysia Campus as part of an official two-day trip to the country reinforcing long-standing links between Malaysia and the UK.

During a visit to the University with the Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Mr Cameron toured the School’s new Pharmaceutics Teaching Laboratory and met with first year pharmacy students from Nottingham’s innovative “2+2” MPharm degree programme. Mr Cameron asked students about the pharmacy course and their studies, and he also spoke of the importance of pharmacists in the NHS.

He later met a number of British final year MPharm students who are currently at Nottingham’s Malaysia Campus on a semester long research project.

Miss Rose Wickstead, one of the final year pharmacy students who met the Prime Minister, said: “During our conversation I described Nottingham’s study abroad scheme, which enables students from the School of Pharmacy at the UK Campus to spend a period of study overseas at the Malaysia Campus. Through this scheme, I was able to spend the entire second year of my MPharm degree and half of my final year at the Malaysia Campus.” She added: “I have made a huge number of new friends and the experience has opened my eyes to the profession of pharmacy in other countries.”

The Prime Minister was shown around the pharmacy laboratory facilities by Professor Ian Pashby, CEO and Provost of the Malaysia Campus and Dr Andrew Morris who is the Director of Studies for the School of Pharmacy in Malaysia.

Nottingham’s 2+2 MPharm programme enables students to spend the first two years of their degree studying at the University’s Malaysia Campus and the final two years in the UK where they graduate. The programme is fully-accredited by the General Pharmaceutical Council and many of the graduates from the first cohorts are now working as pharmacists in the UK, Malaysia and Singapore.

Earlier, speaking at a meeting of the Global Movement of Moderates held on campus, Mr Cameron said: “It is great we are able to do this at the Nottingham University Campus in Malaysia, the first full campus of a British University overseas. This is a really pioneering partnership that sees the full breadth of the academic study and research here in Malaysia.”

Professor Kevin Shakesheff, Head of School, said: “It was an excellent day for the School of Pharmacy and the visit is recognition for the advances which the School in Malaysia has made since its foundation in 2005. It comes just weeks after the Drug Delivery Research Group at the Malaysia Campus was awarded 457K euros as part of a multi-site European Union FP7 award.”

The campus visit also saw the signing of a UK-Malaysia Joint Statement on Higher Education and Skills by the Rt Hon David Willetts MP, Minister of State for Universities and Science, and Malaysia’s Minister for Higher Education Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin.

The University’s campuses in Asia – it also has a campus at Ningbo in China – and its ambitious internationalisation strategy prompted The Sunday Times University Guide 2011 to describe Nottingham as “the embodiment of the modern international university”.

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PICTURES of the visit are available from The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, adrian.mateo@nottingham.ac.uk, or the School of Pharmacy contacts below.

More information is available from Andrew Morris, Director of Studies, School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus or Jane Smith, Director of Operations, School of Pharmacy.

Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham, described by The Sunday Times University Guide 2011 as “the embodiment of the modern international university”, has 42,000 students at award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, China and Malaysia. It is also the most popular university in the UK by 2012 application numbers, and ‘the world’s greenest university’. It is ranked in the UK’s top 10 and the world’s top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) and the QS World University Rankings.

More than 90 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. The University aims to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy & sustainability, and health. The University won a Queen’s Anniversary Prize for Higher and Further Education in 2011, for its research into global food security.

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