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includes a solar fuels lab, officially opened in February 2011.
The lab aims to create efficient and sustainable sources of
hydrogen fuel from water by developing an “artificial leaf”
device and is headed by Visiting Professor James Barber from
Imperial College London.
A significant ongoing project at the centre involves the use of
nanowires and nanonets to fabricate high efficiency solar cells
and batteries and also on novel energy harvesting concepts
for solar cells and photocatalysis; these projects are
supported under the National Research Foundation’s (NRF)
Competitive Research Program. Other solar cell projects in
the centre have received funding from the Ministry of
Education (MOE), Agency for Science and Technology
Research (A*STAR), and Clean Energy Research Programs
(CERP).
Centre for Electromobility (CEM)
ERI@N’s fourth Centre for Electromobility with Technischen
Universität München (TUM), Germany’s leading university
was launched in October 2010. This Centre will lead research
in electric vehicles solutions for large tropical cities such as
Singapore and around the world. Electromobility research will
encompass developing novel high performance batteries,
embedded systems, power train, controls, power electronics,
as well as issues pertaining to infrastructure and driver
considerations. Besides bringing together Professors,
Research Scientists and Engineers from Singapore and
Germany in multidisciplinary research; this program also
brings together nine local and overseas companies to ensure
that the technologies developed in this project will be
exploited in Singapore and beyond.
Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management (ICRM)
Founding Director: Professor Pan Tso-Chien
Vision
The vision of ICRM is to become Asia’s leading research
institute in catastrophe risk management and to help those at
risk worldwide in general and Asia in particular
Mission
The mission of ICRM is:
(a)
(b)
About ICRM
In recent years, we have seen massive increase of human
and economic losses due to catastrophic events. These
events are either natural or manmade. This increase of losses
is due to globalization, urbanization, and by some accounts,
due to global climatic changes. As a result, the nature and
effects of these disasters have changed. The high level of
economic activities and the inter-relationship of nations to
such activities have brought out some unique and
non-traditional risk management issues.
In Asia, where the risk awareness is low and the risk is high,
the situation poses special problems and challenges. These
include understanding and recognizing risk, risk quantification
(monetary, social and human) and risk management. NTU’s
Risk Research Agenda is driven by the principle that
catastrophic risk impacts the functioning and effectiveness of
the whole fabric of society and businesses. Developing
strategies for mitigating these risks will require a robust public
private partnership amongst government agencies, academia
and industry players.
Understanding, communicating and managing catastrophic
risk requires comprehensive methodologies for risk
quantification. ICRM will be the first multi-disciplinary risk
management research institute of its kind in Asia and amongst
a handful of such centers in the world. The Institute will focus
on catastrophe triggered insurance/reinsurance risks,
sovereign risk, societal risk and some non-traditional risks. It
will play a lead role in NTU’s new wave of integrative research
efforts and its strategic vision of Sustainable Earth. In Asia
Pacific, Singapore can take the lead and develop a Center of
Excellence to fill this need and to further strengthen its
position as a major financial hub.
Joint Centres with External
Organisations
CINTRA UMI CNRS/NTU/THALES 3288
Director: Professor Dominique Baillargeat
Vision
Investigation of new technology niches through both:
• Academic research: leverage on synergies between
the universities and research institutes to launch high level
upstream research
• Applied research: leverage on strategic collaboration with
the local R&T/D ecosystem to develop innovative
technologies and transform concepts into applications
Mission
• To tap research talents from Singapore and Europe for
collaborative research
• To focus on upstream dual-use cutting-edge technologies to
address both homeland security and commercial
applications
• To conduct research relevant to the ever-growing worldwide
demand for innovative solutions
Research Activities
CINTRA UMI 3288 is a joint laboratory between Nanyang
Technological University (NTU), the National Center of
Scientific Research (Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique or CNRS) the largest governmental research
organisation in France, and Thales, the French electronics
giant and a global technology leader in aerospace, space,
defence, security and transportation industries. The MOU was
signed on 7 October 2009, by then NTU President,
Dr Su
Guaning
, Director General CNRS, Mr Arnold Migus and
Vice-President, Research & Technology of Thales
Corporation , Dr Marko Erman in the presence of Singapore’s
then Minister of Education and Second Minister of Defence,
Dr Ng Eng Hen
and France’s Minister of Higher Education
and Research, Mrs Valérie Pécresse. This laboratory is
located at NTU’s Research Technoplaza. CINTRA aims to
harness the latest in science and technology to develop
innovations in nanotechnologies for nanoelectronics and
To undertake multi-disciplinary research projects in
science, engineering, finance, technology, economics and
socio-political aspects related to catastrophe risk. Based in
the College of Engineering, ICRM will work with institutions
such as the Earth Observatory of Singapore, the
Rajaratnam School of International Studies, the Nanyang
Business School (or College of Business) as well as
researchers at NUS and SMU. The ICRM will also form
collaborative projects with government agencies and
leading centers of catastrophe risk management in
industry as well as with similar centers in North America
and Europe.
To help the community to better understand the
fundamental characteristics of risks related to natural and
non-traditional disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis,
typhoons, volcanic eruptions, floods, droughts, and to
non-traditional risks due to infectious diseases and
terrorism.