NTU is a research-intensive university with globally acknowledged strengths in science and engineering. It has distinctive international R&D competencies and continues to refine its focus areas to galvanise its resources towards areas where the University have particular strengths in, and which are aligned with the national strategic thrusts. Promotion of science and technology at the highest level is done through the endowed Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS), which regularly flies in Nobel Laureates and other eminent scientists to enrich the life and work of the university community.
NTU has made great strides in its journey towards research intensity and has become increasingly successful in gaining external peer-reviewed competitive funding, with dramatic increases in the number, range and value of the grants awarded. There has been a sharp rise in the external competitive research grants awarded to the University in the past five years; from S$57.6million in FY05 to S$318.8 million in FY09 (includes the 2nd Research Centre of Excellence at $120M over 10 years).
The most significant milestone of NTU’s success in external competitive research grants is the award of S$150million Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) RCE in FY07 and S$120 million Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) RCE in FY09. These awards mark a big step forward for NTU in our efforts to become a world-class research-intensive university. The EOS is helmed by world-renowned seismologist, Prof Kerry Sieh while the SCELSE is led by Prof Staffan Kjelleberg and Prof Yehuda Cohen; both world leaders in the field of environmental life sciences.
Apart from its fundamental research, NTU is also actively fostering applied research through partnerships with major corporations and industry leaders by proactively engaging multinational companies in collaborative initiatives. These industrial collaborations make the key component of a world-class technological university, testament of the relevance of NTU’s research expertise to real life problems that would result in societal benefits and to the pressing market needs of industry.
NTU has been extensively exploring new ways of optimising its core competencies and nodes of excellence, aligning its renowned strengths, and identifying new opportunities for education, research and innovation. Since 2007, NTU has formed the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute (NEWRI), Interactive Media Institute (IMI) and Energy Research Institute@Nanyang (ERIAN). In 2009, and looking towards 2015, NTU identified Five Thematic Peaks of Excellence, focusing on the domains of Sustainable Earth, Future Healthcare, New Media, the New Silk Road, and Innovation Asia. These Five Peaks of Excellence leverage on the myriad of interdisciplinary interfaces and inherent expertises that thrive within NTU and have been elaborated to form the basis for NTU’s future education and research priorities.
To sustain the enhanced research intensity, the University is strengthening its pool of faculty by recruiting top calibre scientists and technologists from around the World. NTU has also been very successful in attracting the World’s best young researchers through the National Research Foundation (NRF)’s Fellowship programme, and its own Nanyang Assistant Professorship (NAP) programme. These two schemes are the latest initiatives set up to woo top researchers from around the world for them to play leading roles in the University’s new wave of multi-disciplinary and integrative research.
Additionally, the University has taken significant strides in clear definitive directions to position itself as Singapore’s premier science and technology and compete at the global level by introducing robust internal processes for high quality assessment, establishing a number of pan-university and key strategic initiatives, providing some of the best research infrastructures available to support its drive towards producing world-class research as well as committing to the highest standards of ethical behaviour in carrying out our research. We have established the NTU Research Integrity Policy and Procedures in early 2008, an Institutional Review Board for all research activities involving human research participants and human biological materials in May 2009 and has collaborated with NUS, SMU and A*STAR, to host the Second World Conference on Research Integrity (2nd WCRI) in Singapore in July 2010.
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