COMSTECH-UPM EAGLE PhD Finishing Program

A Collaboration between OIC Standing Committee on Scientific and Technological Cooperation (OIC-COMSTECH) and Universiti Putra Malaysia, under the COMSTECH Distinguished Scholars Program

Date: 9-13 May, 2026
Venue: Faculty of Design and Architecture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia

Deadline for Registration: April 28, 2026

Instructor:
Professor Ts. Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim, FTWAS, FASc, FIVMM
COMSTECH Distinguished Scholar
Faculty of Design and Architecture, Universiti Putra Malaysia,
43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, MALAYSIA
Email: rahinah@upm.edu.my

About the EAGLE Program:
EAGLE stands for Excellence Accelerator for Grounded Learning Environment. It is a structured academic support framework designed to help postgraduate students complete their research. By understanding their cultural and language behaviors, PhD students can be more efficient and independent to manage their PhD journey.
The EAGLE techniques and tools were developed from the founder’s first-hand experience overcoming significant challenges during her PhD at Stanford University, combined with over two decades of supervising as well as teaching research methodology at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). These techniques have been successfully applied to numerous postgraduate students, including supervised graduates and external postgraduate researchers.
Unlike conventional approaches that are method-centric or language-focused, EAGLE adopts a theory-centric and content-driven approach. It prioritizes strong theoretical grounding and
logical argumentation before technical writing or methodological detail.

Through EAGLE, participants learn to:

Identify missing or weak components in their thesis;
How to relate theory to develop research methodology;
How to link data to theory;
How to align results with theory;
Reduce writing time through content restructuring;
Identify whether thesis has potential to create intellectual property (IP) asset; and
Develop confidence as independent scholarly researchers

Overall, the EAGLE framework accelerates postgraduate progress by strengthening critical thinking, clarifying structural impacts, and improving academic independence—key factors for timely and high-quality research completion.

About the Lead Trainer:
Professor Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim is an entrepreneurial design scientist who strives working with transdisciplinary peers especially when Arts and Humanities merge with S&T to produce an invention appropriate to serve vulnerable communities. Trained by Stanford Research Institute and Oxford University Innovations in innovations and entrepreneurship and permitted to become Co-Founder of Grounded Learning (M) Sdn. Bhd. —a startup company under UPM’s Innohub—to commercialize the EAGLE Program. Prof. Rahinah
believes that having innovation and entrepreneurship knowledge during R&D phase would improve an invention’s market acceptance later. Moreover, applying proven R&D outputs in classrooms would allow students to jump start their life-long learning before a product even hits the market. She is a strong advocate for Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities to make STEAM impacts to the world. She has graduated 33 Master/PhD students and is Principal Inventor for 23 intellectual properties (IP).

Program Synopsis:
The PhD Finishing Program is an intensive, structured academic workshop designed to enable PhD candidates to consolidate, rescue, and reinforce their research work from Chapter 1 through to Chapter 6 of their thesis.
The program focuses on diagnosing weaknesses in participants’ existing research progress and systematically rebuilding a strong, defensible research foundation. Through guided lectures, applied in-class work, participants are led through a process of alignment between research questions, theoretical framing, methodology, and data.
This program is especially designed for candidates who have already started their PhD but are experiencing difficulty in progressing, maintaining coherence, or completing their thesis within the expected timeframe.

By the end of the program, participants will produce:

A working thesis draft covering Chapter 1 to Chapter 5 or 6, depending on their current research stage
A clear research overview of their thesis
An improved thesis structure ready for supervisor review
A revised and defensible thesis

Objectives:

Diagnose and evaluate each participant’s current PhD research progress
Identify conceptual, theoretical, and methodological gaps in the thesis
Reinforce the coherence between research questions, theory, and methods
Guide participants in restructuring and strengthening their thesis chapters
Enable participants to produce a working thesis draft by the end of the program depending on their current PhD progress

Program Format s Schedule:
Mode: Physical, face-to-face, participants remain on-site
Duration: 5 days (9am-5pm)
Schedule: Click here to download

Target Participants:

This program is designed for:
PhD candidates who have already started their PhD
Candidates who have begun proposal writing, data collection, or analysis
Candidates who are stucked, delayed, or uncertain about the quality and coherence of their thesis

Prerequisite:
PhD candidates who have already started their PhD studies.
Have at least a draft research proposal, or draft chapters, or data collected, or ongoing thesis work.
From an OIC Member State currently residing in Malaysia.

Registration:
For registration, please fill out the following form along with required documents: https://form.jotform.com/261059258880465
Note:
Please note that this a physical on-site training, for limited candidates from OIC Member States currently resident in Malaysia. The selected candidates will have to cover their own travel and accommodation (if from outside the city).
This program is especially designed for candidates who have already started their PhD but are experiencing difficulty in progressing, maintaining coherence, or completing their thesis within the expected timeframe.

Queries
For any queries, please contact at: haseeb.ahmad@comstech.org