Dato’ Ir. Dr. Mohd. Saleh Jaafar, DSIS, F.ASc, F.APM, P. Eng, FIEM

Qualifications and Professional Affiliations 

Saleh has proven records of achievement at personal and organizational levels. As an academic, he has won many awards and recognitions at university, national and international levels. At the organizational level, he has transformed almost all entities he had been entrusted to lead. 

Over the years, Saleh has played significant roles in national talent development through the Ministry of Education/Ministry of Higher Education, Ministry of Science and Technology, and Ministry of Public Works on critical initiatives related to research, education, and professional practices. He played a vital role in the development of MyRA instruments in 2006. He led the development of rating instruments, which have been used by the Ministry of Education since 2009. The systems include MyQuest (ratings for private colleges), Polyrate (ratings for Polytechnics), and MySpekk (ratings for Community Colleges). In 2017, he was tasked to revise and develop a new system for SETARA (ratings for universities and university colleges). He leads many important studies, including the Science Outlook 2020 for the Academy of Sciences Malaysia and Baselines for the National STI Policy for MOSTI.

He also played a significant role as Deputy Chair for developing the MEB (HE) 2015-2025. He believes that the biggest transformation plans which is working in the right direction are the MEB(HE) 2015-2025 and the University Transformation Program (UTP). 

He also has experience in the business and corporate sectors. He was the CEO of UPM Holdings Sdn. Bhd. in 2018-2019. He has been a board member for various entities, including UM, UITM, UPSI and MyIPO. Currently the Chairman for MSQ Engineering and Solutions, Hibiscus International School and Talent Development Committee for the Academy of Sciences Malaysia. He was recently engaged by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research Iraq as an international evaluation panel for Iraq Higher Education