In most developed countries, the government’s calling in a foreign university to carry out a national research program might inspire protests from local universities.
But in Singapore, it’s how things are done.
And so when Singapore’s National Research Foundation—the city-state’s equivalent to the National Science Foundation in the United States—tapped the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to join it in building a multimillion-dollar center to tackle pressing environmental and health issues, no one batted an eye.
The Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, or Smart, as the program is called, is MIT’s first research center beyond its Cambridge campus, and it is ambitious in scope. Several hundred professors, postdoctoral researchers, and students from both MIT and Singapore now occupy the center’s temporary facilities at the National University of Singapore. Since Smart’s founding in 2007, those scholars have tackled infectious diseases, environmental modeling, and biomedical research.
For Singapore, the partnership is part of a drive to reposition itself as a center for knowledge and innovation through investment in higher education and research.
“There have been a number of speeches by ministers about research and its link to the economy,” says Rohan Abeyaratne, former head of MIT’s department of mechanical engineering, who was brought over to direct Smart. “It’s a major focus in Singapore. And the kinds of things they’re doing are quite bold.”
Once known mainly for its repressive laws, Singapore has over the past decade attracted leading scientists and researchers from around the world. Central to its strategy are partnerships with top American universities, including the Georgia Institute of Technology and Duke and Stanford Universities.
Collaboration with MIT dates to 1998, when the university agreed to share facilities with the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. Mr. Abeyaratne says observing that alliance, which focuses on engineering and life-science research, helped persuade him to move to Asia to direct Smart. “I was very impressed with the vision of the Singapore, the way they are going about it, and the quality controls they are putting in place.”
That vision now includes MIT’s making a direct contribution to Singapore’s economic growth. The National Research Foundation has promised the center a choice spot in its $705-million Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise, a gleaming research complex intended to attract corporate and university laboratories from around the world ahead of its opening next year.
In return, foundation representatives review Smart’s scientific program, reserving the right to cancel projects.
Almost Complete Freedom
Some foreign scientists working in Singapore complain of government meddling in their research. But Mr. Abeyaratne says MIT was given complete freedom to come up with research topics—within the requirement that they benefit Singapore.
Two of the center’s three projects focus on immediate needs. The environmental-modeling program will help the city-state predict erosion by developing a model for the Singapore Strait, which is so narrow that slight changes in water level affect surrounding bodies of water.
“They’re reclaiming land on one side, and it’s eroding on the other side,” Mr. Abeyaratne says of Singapore’s land management. And the infectious-disease project focuses on tropical sicknesses common in Asia, including dengue fever and malaria. For MIT, Mr. Abeyaratne says, such research can be complicated to conduct in Cambridge because of strict federal restrictions on transporting pathogens.
Economic growth remains firmly at the center of Smart’s mission.
In addition to its research projects, Smart solicits proposals for inventions and new concepts, then works with MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation and Singapore business-school students to develop the ideas into viable business models. The hope is that venture capitalists will eventually finance spinoff companies.
That hasn’t happened yet, but the Singapore government is betting it will. In January 2009, the Ministry of Education allocated $33.1-million for full-tuition scholarships for Smart graduate students, according to a recent report from the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, which studies higher-education delivery around the world. Plans are under way for two additional projects.
