The School of Medical Sciences has been a leader and continues to maintain leadership in research at Universiti Sains Malaysia. The amount of grant funds in Ringgit Malaysia received by the SMS received through 6th -8th Malaysia Plan thus far (up to July 2003) supported 145 long term projects under the Intensified Research in Prioritized Areas (IRPA), 296 short term projects, 6 Fundamental researches under the Fundamental Research Grants Scheme (FRGS), 29 incentive grants and 51 projects were funded by external grants, out of which 37 were from companies participating in clinical trials. There are a total of 223 lecturers of the School of Medical Sciences as of July 2003, the majority is in the rank of lecturers, comprising 152 persons. Out of the total numbers of academic staff, the non-contract lecturers make up 73.5%. Almost all of these non contract lecturers are holding or have held research grants and a total of 49.4% are principal investigators. Only 17.1% of the contract lecturers are or were participating in research. There is an impressive increasing trend of the number of grants held by the academic staff during the period through the 6th and 8th (up to July 2003) as depicted in Figure 7. The trend is similar to the increase in the number of academic staff in SMS (Figure 8). The medical school is proud to house seven of the 13 young scientist awards, 2 National Scientist awards and 2 Toray Foundation recipients in the country. The school has won several national and international awards; among these are 9, I-TEX awards, 2 Geneva and 2 Nuremberg international invention competitions medals and many more. This achievement far exceeds the records of other medical schools in the country.