Grants and Writing Resources for Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
On 8 July 2026 a Faculty of Dentistry postgraduate won the Science, Engineering and Technology category of the national Three Minute Thesis competition at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, which qualified her for the 2026 Asia-Pacific 3MT at the University of Queensland. A Faculty of Islamic Studies student placed third in Social Sciences. In October UKM reported that a biomedical science PhD candidate was one of 12 young Asia-Pacific researchers chosen from 200 participants for the IBRO-APRC Associate School 2026. That candidate's poster on early molecular changes in Alzheimer's disease also won an Outstanding Poster Presentation Award at Tsukuba Global Science Week 2026 in Japan.
Prizes for Graduating Researchers
The Centre for Academic Management runs two postgraduate awards each year. For the Anugerah Emas Kedoktoran dan Sarjana UKM, doctoral and master's students graduating at that year's convocation apply through the graduate office of their faculty, institute or centre. Each unit screens its applicants and may put forward two students per category, and the winners are chosen at university level.
The Hadiah Buku Inovasi MTDC is narrower. The 2026 round was open to PhD candidates in social science and science and technology research who were due to graduate in November 2026.
Fees, Scholarships and Research Abroad
Full-time master's and PhD students in research mode can apply for the Skim Zamalah Penyelidikan, which helps with tuition fees only. Rounds open by semester, and the supervisor confirms the application form before it goes in.
Sustainability research has a dedicated sponsor. In September 2026 three PhD students and three master's students received the UKM-YSD Chair for Sustainability scholarship, funded through an RM15 million endowment from Yayasan Sime Darby. The 2026 awards brought the partnership's postgraduate scholarship offers to 30 since it began in 2010. Its core areas include climate change.
Undergraduates can draw on the Dana Mobiliti Pelajar ke Luar Negara as well. UKM Global uses it to fund research attachments of five days or more at a foreign university or research institution, among other programmes. Applicants are Malaysian citizens enrolled full-time; undergraduates need a CGPA of 3.0 after at least one semester, and research students need a "Lulus, Terus Pengajian" status. Each student can receive the fund once during their studies and files a report within two weeks after the programme ends.
Writing to Gaya UKM
UKM theses follow a house style. The UKM Thesis Writing Guideline According to Gaya UKM, issued by the UKM Graduate Centre, sets A4 pages in 12-point Times New Roman with 1.5 line spacing, an author-date citation system, and abstracts of 200 to 350 words. Its 2015 printing caps a PhD thesis at 100,000 words or 400 pages and a master's thesis at 60,000 words or 250 pages.
The Centre for Academic Management's postgraduate page carries the guide in Malay and English, a Word template, a link to UKM Style LaTeX and the 2026 postgraduate regulations. Under those 2026 rules, a student who has handed in a thesis for examination keeps registering each semester with the status "Penyerahan Tesis Untuk Pemeriksaan." In 2023 the centre ran a workshop series on managing a thesis in Word with the Gaya UKM template, plus webinars on the literature review and on writing a review article.
Choosing a Journal
Perpustakaan Tun Seri Lanang, the university library, keeps a research support page with lists of indexed journals. It posts the Scopus list as downloads labelled by month, most recently August 2026, and explains how to reach the Web of Science list through Journal Citation Reports in eResources@ptsl.
A thesis checked against Gaya UKM, or an article bound for an indexed journal, can come to our editors for a final pass on grammar, consistency and format. See our Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia dissertation and thesis editing and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia essay editing pages, or write to editors@editorsforstudents.com.
From Our Writing Guides
Compiled by James Peterson Brown, PhD, Managing Editor of Editors For Students. Links checked October 2026.
Editors For Students is an independent editorial service and is not affiliated with Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, and your faculty may endorse our services individually. We look forward to helping you bring your UKM writing to its strongest, submission-ready form.