In August 2017, Professor Ooi Keat Gin spent a week at the Academy of Brunei Studies as a Visiting Professor. This was Professor Ooi’s third visit to the Academy in recent years, the longest of which was a six-month stay in 2014, which led to a major book publication on Brunei that Professor Ooi edited with individual chapters written by Academy staff: Brunei - History, Islam, Society and Contemporary Issues, 2016. Ooi Keat Gin (ed.), Routledge.

On this occasion Professor Ooi gave a seminar talk entitled ‘Write from the heart: The key to academic publishing’, and held discussions with staff from the Academy of Brunei Studies and the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences on future collaborative book projects. Professor Ooi also made time to meet graduate students and share with them his knowledge of research and publishing.

Professor Ooi’s seminar attracted a large number of staff and graduate students from many of UBD’s faculties and a lively question and answer session followed. His talk focused on academic publishing, both books and journals, and Professor Ooi shared his insights and knowledge on the topic derived from his long and productive career as a major award winning author and founder and editor-in-chief of the award winning Scopus indexed journal the International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies (IJAPS).

Professor Ooi is professor of history, and coordinator of the Asia Pacific Research Unit (APRU) at the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains, Malaysia.