Penang Institute Newsletters

February 2024 – Can We Sense What Our Common Purpose Is?

While working on, and discussing the process of “placemaking”, it became clear to us that the term is applicable as much to the establishment of creative spaces like…

January 2024 – A Dragon Year for Added Optimism

The new year has begun in haste, and the Institute continues to remain as vibrant and internationally connected as possible, with its events, connections and publications.

December 2023 – A New Year Calls For A New Sense Of Purpose

Entering 2024 feels much more promising than for any other year since 2020. In January 2020, as we reached the finishing post of Vision 2020…

November 2023 – More to look forward to in 2024 than in the last few years

Another year is about to begin, and there is more to be optimistic about than had been the case in the last four years…

October 2023 – Launching Mechanisms to Generate Synergy between Penang’s Brains and Brain Trusts

Penang Institute embarked last month on a new phase in its development. Convinced of the need for a quantum-leap upgrade in the public policy thinking ecosystem in Penang…

September 2023 – Excelling Is A Duty To Ourselves

Think tank work, to my mind, is a constant endeavour firstly to understand the ecosystem of the relevant location—in our case, the state of Penang within Malaysia and within the current world situation.

August 2023 – Back To Books, Forward To Books

The focus on Books in the Penang Monthly for August comes at a time when Penang Institute is actively reviewing how it can improve its Penang Studies Resource Centre (PSRC) to …

July 2023 – A New Mandate for Positive Development in Federalism and Inclusive Nation Building

This may be the newsletter for July, but this note is being written 4 days after the state election saw the Pakatan Harapan taking power for the fourth term in a row, albeit this time with Barisan Nasional as state (and federal) ally.

June 2023 – Spotlight on the environment and the economy

In recent weeks, much of the Institute’s attention has been taken up in two areas. Firstly, we worked with the Chief Minister’s Office to develop the medium-term economic action plan that we call Penang’s Strategy for Economic Ecosystem Development (SEED)…