Forging Global Links

International networking is a cornerstone of the global university. It is the stimulus behind the buzz and vivacity that defines the global university as a confluence of talents, ideas and exchanges. The cross-boundary tie-ups and collaborations made by NUS in the year pervade every aspect of the University’s core competencies.

IN EDUCATION

NUS has tied up with the following partners in the year to leverage on their teaching strengths as well as provide its students with a global perspective:

• with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay to offer a joint graduate degree programme in advanced engineering materials.
  
  
• with Australian National University (ANU) to offer a Joint Bachelor of Philosophy (Honours)/Bachelor of Science (Honours) degree programme in chemistry, physics and mathematics.
  
  
• with Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases, University of Basel and Swiss Tropical Institute to provide a joint masters programme in tropical infectious diseases.
  
  
• with East China University of Politics and Law (ECUPL) to jointly teach a Masters of Laws (LLM) in international business law.
  
  
• with Karolinska Institutet, Sweden to provide a joint PhD programme in Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology.
  
  
• with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) under the Singapore-MIT Alliance to provide a graduate programme in computation and systems biology.
  
  
• with the Swiss-based World Trade Institute to collaborate in teaching and research activities in the field of international economic law.
  
  
• with University of Copenhagen, Helsinki University, Budapest University of Technology, Warsaw University of Technology, Zagreb University (Croatia), Babes Bolyai University (Romania), Alexandra Iaon Cuza University (Romania) and the Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Mexico) on student exchanges.
  
  
• with Harvard Medical Institute (HMI) to conduct the HMI-NUS Programme for Physician Educators.

IN RESEARCH

International collaborations provide NUS researchers with the critical mass in terms of talent, resources and cross-fertilisation of ideas as the following have done:

• The NUS Silicon Nano Devices Laboratory is working with Jusung Engineering, Korea’s largest maker of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, to develop the next-generation semiconductor device technology.
  
  
• Assistant Professor Peter Ho and research fellow Chua Lay Lay (Faculty of Science) are collaborating with Sir Richard Friend (Cambridge University), the “father of the plastic electronics revolution”, to develop plastics that behave like semiconductors and metals. They have succeeded in coming up with the world’s first general working n-type plastic transistor. The technological feat, which was also achieved with input from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (Singapore) was published in Nature (March 2005).
  
  
• Associate Professor Shazib Pervaiz (Faculty of Medicine) has tied up with researchers at the Karolinska Institutet to successfully investigate why B-cell lymphoma do not respond to chemotherapy. Their findings were published in Blood (February 2005).
  
  
• Associate Professor Lim Chwee Teck (Faculty of Engineering) and Assistant Professor Kevin Tan (Faculty of Medicine) have linked up with researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology to examine how parasites from the female Anopheles mosquitoes stiffen red blood cells. Their paper on elasticity changes in red blood cells as the parasite matures within them won a Ribbon Award at the 2004 Materials Research Society, Fall Meeting in Boston, US.
  
  
• Associate Professor Jochen Wirtz (School of Business) collaborated with Associate Professor Loizos Heracleous (Oxford University) on an article titled Biometrics Meets Services which was published in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) under Breakthrough Ideas for 2005. The article is the first from the School to make it into the HBR.
  
  
• Assistant Professor Xia Yingcun (Faculty of Science) researching with peers at Cambridge University has developed a novel gravity model in the study of metapopulation dynamics of measles. Their work was featured in The American Naturalist (August 2004).
  
  
• Associate Professor Vincent Chow (Faculty of Medicine) working with researchers from the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, India, has discovered that a protein in the SARS virus which causes host cells to commit suicide could point the way towards fighting the disease. Their findings were published in the Biochemical Journal (August 2004).

IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Cross-country tie-ups have enabled budding entrepreneurs in the NUS community to learn and work in some of the world’s thriving entrepreneurial centres:

• NUS Overseas Colleges tied up with Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, to set up the first NUS Overseas College in Europe. The partnership enables students attending NUS College in Stockholm (NCST) to attend part-time courses in engineering, science and entrepreneurship at KTH and the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship (SSES) while working full time in high-technology firms in the Kista Science Park.
  
  
• NUS Start-up@Singapore Business Plan Competition and Forums will join CU Entrepreneurs (Cambridge University) and CORE (Columbia Organisation of Rising Entrepreneurs) to be one of the seven founding members of Global Entrepreneurship Forum.