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Progress of Research Activities
in NTU
NTU is a research-intensive university with globally
acknowledged strengths in environmental life science;
environmental engineering; earth science; materials science;
biomedical structural biology; cryptography; photovoltaic
technology; interactive digital media; membrane technology
for water purification; advanced photonics; green chemistry
and many other emerging fields in science and technology. 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 national strategic thrusts.
In the area of healthcare, NTU has launched the Lee Kong
Chian School of Medicine, Singapore’s newest medical school
in partnership with Imperial College London, complete with
S$400 million in endowment. This exciting new school will
take in its first batch of students in 2013. The School will
address the critical need for producing doctors who will also
receive grounding in technology and business in their medical
training.
The university continues to make remarkable progress in
research, registering growing number of research
partnerships and networks, a record number of high-impact
publications, as well as an increased shared of external
competitive research grants that have increased close to five
fold over the last five years; from S$58 million in FY05 to
S$343.8 million in FY10. NTU is ranked 58th in the world in
the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings
2011, where it is one of the fastest-rising universities in the top
100 as well as the fastest-rising Asian university. In 2011, NTU
also became the first university in Asia to receive the
maximum five stars under the QS stars rating system. NTU
has made unprecedented research investments, emphasising
cutting-edge research and revolutionary technological
innovation across multiple disciplines.
The most significant milestone of NTU’s success in external
competitive research grants is the award of S$150 million
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, Professor Kerry Sieh while
the SCELSE is led by Professor Staffan Kjelleberg and
Professor Yehuda Cohen; both world leaders in the field of
environmental life sciences. These two Research Centres of
Excellence at NTU are significant pillars in the University’s
efforts in sustainable research.
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. In
2010/2011, we inked agreements with EADS, Det Norske
Veritas, National Instruments, Kemira Oyj, Gamesa,
MicoVision, Austrian Institute of Technology, Solid Asia, the
University of Warwick, Rice University, Rolls-Royce, IBM,
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Centre National de la Recherche,
Scientifique International and Thales, among others. These
industrial collaborations form 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.
Riding on a rocket owned by the Indian Space Research
Organisation (ISRO), NTU has successfully launched the
Singapore’s first indigenous micro-satellite, X-SAT, from
Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India on 20 April 2011. The
X-Sat is the first Singapore satellite mission designed and
wholly built within NTU, in collaboration with DSO National
Laboratories. The X-SAT sent the first image of Singapore on
7 May 2011. Scientists can use the satellite photographs to
track environmental changes, such as soil erosion and oil
pollution. This successful launch represents “a huge leap” in
Singapore's efforts to build space technology.
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. In 2010, and looking
towards 2015, NTU has 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.
As a start, NTU has focused its research efforts on
sustainability initiatives, future healthcare and new media
developments by establishing pan-university research
institutes and centres to drive these research directions.