Diffusion trajectories of emerging sciences in Malaysian R&D system

In the last two decades, Malaysia has demonstrated significant economic progress and achieved an impressive growth performance in manufacturing exports as a result of its industrial development policies. In order to achieve higher-value-added sector, Research and Development (R&D) activities are necessary. Since the introduction of the first national science and technology policy (1986–1987) and Industrial Technology Development: a National Plan of Action (1990–2001), the Malaysian government has been committed to develop and building up competencies in learning to advance its R&D activities. This paper aims to analyze the trend of scientific production in Malaysia to indicate some characteristics of its R&D system. Logistic growth function is developed to model the growth trajectories of the selected sciences. A time-series of projection of selected technologies is made through logistic curves. In addition, Thailand and Singapore (a country with advanced diffusion of sciences), are included for comparison.