Wan Portia Hamzah served in several national, regional and Commonwealth working groups on science and technology for development in ISIS Malaysia since 1991. Wan Portia was actively involved in the smart partnership concept. Her research initially was focused on issues such as S&T indicators, sustainable development, IT infrastructure and governance in the information age, environmental management and cleaner development solutions. She was later involved in the National Brains Trust on Education, was part of the ISIS Housing Study Team and was involved in various initiatives in building capacity to handle multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). Currently, she is looking into the security implications of climate change, STI human capital and social sciences research-policy linkages. Wan Portia holds a BSc. (Hons) from University of Science Malaysia, a Postgraduate Diploma with Distinction in Marine Pollution Chemistry from the University of Liverpool, a Masters degree in Structure and Organisation of Science and Technology from the University of Manchester and Diplome de Langue Francaise, Paris.