NUS Research : Overview

As a research-intensive institution, the University continues to build on its core areas of research excellence and to make an impact with revolutionary discoveries.  Reflecting strong research output, a total of 633 new projects took off in Financial Year 2007 while 748 projects were completed.  A total of 2,146 papers were published in internationally refereed journals.

NUS produces research of international quality and impact in a broad range of fields.  To maintain its competitive edge, the university seeks to reinforce its core research infrastructure, faculty and programmes . This is achieved by identifying and developing rapidly-emerging areas and promoting multi-disciplinary research.

The University enjoyed a major funding of $343 million in research grants in Financial Year 2007 from the National Research Foundation, Ministry of Education and other agencies, registering an increase of 28 per cent over the year before.

Some highlights of our achievements in Research in the past financial year are

• NUS was awarded its second Research Centre of Excellence (RCE) – the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore – following last year’s Centre for Quantum Technologies, with funding of $172 million over seven years
• over $18 million was awarded for two projects undertaken by the Faculty of Engineering on membrane materials and spintronics.
• $13 million was received for six projects undertaken by the Interactive and Digital Media Institute
• $10 million was received through the NRF Competitive Research Programme Funding Grant for Lipidomics.  Similar amounts were also received for 3 other projects in energy, spintronic and graphene research. 
• NUS is in collaboration with the world’s largest non-profit cancer research institute, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, to set up its first Asia branch for translational and clinical cancer research.
• Energy Studies Institute (ESI), first such think-tank in Southeast Asia, was established to make Singapore a centre for strategic research on energy
• Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) was set up, with support from the Economic Development Board, to conduct world-class R&D and train specialist manpower

FY08 is also a remarkable year for NUS.  The following are some highlights:

• A third Research Centre of Excellence (RCE) in Mechanobiology was awarded to NUS. With funding of S$150million, the centre will have three integrated inter-disciplinary teams working on cellular, molecular and tissue mechanics. 
• NUS also received $12million from Goh Foundation to Advance Paediatric Oncology Challenge.
• An MOU was signed between NUS and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) to promote joint research and scientific exchange between both organizations in the effort to help address the pressing global challenge of food security.
• NUS partners with Keio University, one of the top universities in Japan, to jointly set up a Joint Research Centre On Interactive Digital Media.

More information could also be obtained from the NUS Annual Report and the NUS Research Report.