With reference to malaysiakini report Kit Siang: Stop wasting millions on Geneva event and the letter Why the need for ISO cert for varsities? , allow me to offer an explanation on why our local universities appear to be obsessed with such activities that have virtually nothing to do with academic merit or excellence.

In animal behaviour, this is known as displacement activity. First described independently by two researchers, Tinbergen and Kortlandt in 1940, this behaviour is exhibited by animals such as cats and birds when faced with a conflicting situation of fear and stress. When an animal is confronted in a fearful, stressful situation and is uncertain as to whether to fight or run, it may engage in a third type of behaviour, that is completely unrelated to the immediate threat.

For example, a cat may start grooming itself. In the same manner, people also take part in displacement activity. When you're supposed to studying for an examination or need to write that long-overdue report, you may find a (strange and urgent) need to clean out the closet, re-arrange the CDs, polish the shoes, et cetera. When I was an undergraduate student, there were more water fights in our hostel during the period just leading up to the examinations. Surprisingly, after the examinations were over, nobody seemed interested in water fights.

In a similar manner, our universities are unable to cope with the responsibilities or the kind of performance that is required of a university with academic excellence. Therefore, they start indulging in displacement activities such as taking part in dubious exhibitions in Geneva. As a former academician, I cannot help but feel more than a little sad that a university professor should come forward to defend these silly awards as important measures of academic excellence.

One of the many ways to gauge academic and research excellence is to evaluate the merit of the scientific publications of our scientists. It is not only the quantity of research papers but also the quality. For instance, papers published in non-peer reviewed journals (ie, less reputable journals) are worth less. I know that somebody is going to point out some pretty important work that was published in non-peer reviewed journals. However, I'm not referring to exceptions.

Another way to measure the scientific merit or quality of research publications is a device known as the Citation Index, which is a measure of how many papers have cited your paper as a reference source. The Citation Index can be used to evaluate the importance of one's work. As an example, the citation index of the paper published by Watson and Crick on the DNA molecule in Nature would have gone through the roof. In many universities, the Citation Index is used as an important part of the tenure review process. (It is not the only measure but an important one).

In other words, your promotion may depend upon it. In one of our local universities (and I'll confess that I'm not sure how the promotion exercises are carried out in other universities), a lecturer applying for promotion would have to list his publications (among other things). There is no attempt to separate peer-reviewed from non peer-reviewed publications. In other words, a publication in an internationally-renowned journal counts for about as much as one in a local journal or magazine.

In addition, we have a column titled 'Non-published publications'. I know that sounds like an oxymoron but hey, we're talking about displacement activity here. This includes the papers that have been presented at seminars or conferences but not published in proceedings. I've known lecturers who cook up such 'publications' to 'sex up' their curriculum vitae.

The one measure of academic excellence that almost nobody wants to talk about is the Citation Index. This is because this would expose the quality of the publications. 'Too difficult to measure' they would claim. However, in the computerised world, citation analyses have become more useful and widespread. Our universities do not want to hear of such things.

Of course, there are 'other considerations' for academic excellence. These are the considerations that make many a professor. For example, if you get your name published in the newspapers, wow! Or if you appear on national television! Your chances of becoming a full professor would look very good.

In truth, these are displacement activities disguised to hoodwink the Malaysian public. Gold medals! In Geneva! Wah! While academicians would not hesitate to criticise the criteria used by the Times Higher Education Supplement to rank Malaysian universities ('invalid criteria', I believe, is the common complaint and incidentally the Citation Index of the staff is one of the criteria), the same people would probably be happy to trumpet our glorious achievements in accumulating more gold medals in an exhibition in Geneva than other universities.

In fact, they should not hesitate to claim that we're the best in the world or at any rate, we must be better than Harvard or Yale, or Princeton or Cambridge or even the National University of Singapore University. Look how many gold medals we have! They have or not? And what about ISO certification?

Do you know which faculty in the world (yes, the world!) was the first to receive the ISO 9001? The Veterinary Faculty of Universiti Putra Malaysia!