speech by mr lim chuan poh, chairman, … sep...the imperial college alumni association of singapore...

of 21

SPEECH BY MR LIM CHUAN POH, CHAIRMAN, AGENCY FOR SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH (A*STAR) AT

THE IMPERIAL COLLEGE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF SINGAPORE ANNUAL LECTURE ON 24 SEPTEMBER 2010

THE RESEARCH, INNOVATION AND ENTERPRISE (RIE) LANDSCAPE IN SINGAPORE

Greetings

Mr Tan Hang Cheong,

Mr J Y Pillay,

Distinguished alumni,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

a very good evening to all of you.

For those who might have missed the announcement of the university ranking

result, you will be pleased to know that Imperial College was ranked 5th in the

world by the QS World University Rankings 2010 ahead of MIT at 9th position.

On the other hand, Times Higher Education ranked MIT at 3rd position with

Imperial College in 9th position.

Such is the nature of ranking. More pertinent is that Imperial remains a top 10

university in the world and top 3 in the UK.

of 21

As Imperial College continues to do well in the UK university landscape,

Singapore has also become increasingly important to Imperial College with the

fifth largest contingent of students and, I might add, of the highest quality.

The presence of all of you here speaks to that.

It is in this context that Imperial College and Nanyang Technological University

are jointly setting up a Medical School in Singapore offering a Joint Medical

Degree.

PM mentioned this during his National Day Rally recently.

This would have been unheard of 10 years ago.

If anything, it reflects how far Singapore has come in terms of the overall

excellence of our university and research sector.

Prof Sir Keith O’Nions, Rector of Imperial College, in the press release on this

medical school, was quoted as saying that Singapore was a country long

admired for its support and application of world class science, engineering and

medicine.

As alumni of Imperial College, all of you can therefore be rightly proud of both

your alma mater and also Singapore.

of 21

Tonight, it is my great honour to have been invited to speak to you on the state of

R&D in Singapore and how Singapore as a nation measures up to other research

intensive countries.

Transformation of Singapore’s R&D Landscape

In the 1990s, faced with strong competition in the traditional manufacturing and

service sectors, Singapore recognised that sustainable growth can only be

achieved through differentiating ourselves from the global competition.

This involves being able to seize opportunities and being innovative in our

approach.

This is particularly imperative for Singapore given that we are a little red dot with

a small population and no natural resources to speak of.

Last Friday, during the press conference following the Research, Innovation and

Enterprise Council Meeting, in explaining Singapore’s commitment to investing in

R&D, Prime Minister stressed that, and I quote, “research and innovation

underpin the competitiveness of our industries, catalyse new growth and

transform our economy.

Increasingly, intellectual capital will be critical for our next phase of economic

development” Unquote.

of 21

It was with this same mindset that Singapore embarked on a technology drive to

transform our economy, to bring us into the ranks of technologically-advanced

countries.

The National Science and Technology Board (NSTB) was formed in 1991, and

our first directed five year Science & Technology plan was developed with an

R&D budget of S$2 billion.

Since then, the government’s investment in R&D has almost doubled every

quinquennium to S$13.55 billion in the current 5-year tranche of 2006 to 2010.

As announced by PM last week, the Government will be setting aside S$16.1

billion for Research, Innovation and Enterprise for FY2011-2015.

This is 20% above the current tranche.

It is also in line with the ESC’s recommendation of committing 1% of our GDP to

public sector R&D.

The government’s steady and sustained commitment to R&D to transform

Singapore into a knowledge-based, innovation-driven economy has resulted in a

dramatic change in Singapore’s R&D landscape, especially over this ten years.

When once we had only isolated pockets of R&D capabilities, we now have a

vibrant R&D ecosystem with many research performers.

This includes public research institutions under A*STAR, institutes of higher

learning, hospitals, academic medical centres and corporate R&D laboratories.

When once our research was concentrated in physical sciences and engineering,

we now have a broad spectrum of deep capabilities in niche areas, ranging from

of 21

epigenetics, to stem cell biology, nanotechnology, tissue engineering, clean

technology, and even volcanology and seismology.

When once we only had a Science Park dedicated to R&D, we now have two

purpose-built, state-of-the-art complexes at Biopolis and Fusionopolis, alongside

our research intensive universities – with both ranked as top universities in the

world.

As we speak, we are witnessing the completion of Phase 3 of Biopolis and Phase

2B of Fusionopolis with more announcements to come.

Likewise, NUS is seeing the completion of MD6 and the development of

university town while NTU is about to embark on further development.

In other words, we are still growing in spite of the tremendous growth in this

decade.

Biopolis and Fusionopolis are home to not just public research institutes, but also

to corporate R&D laboratories including Novartis, GSK, Vesta and Nitto Denko.

The developments of Biopolis and Fusionopolis serve to attract corporate R&D

activities to Singapore and also foster a conducive environment for public-private

partnerships and collaborations.

Just to give you a sense of the significance of the concept, when UK Medical

Research Council, Cancer Research UK, Wellcome Trust and University College

London decided to pool their resources to develop UK Central Medical Research

Institute, a 600 million pounds project, Lord Martin Rees, the President of the

of 21

Royal Society was noted to have remarked, and I quote, “Finally, we have

something that can compete with the Biopolis of Singapore.” Unquote.

Early this year, HP Labs opened its first corporate R&D lab in South East Asia,

adding to a growing list of corporate labs that have chosen to be based in

Fusionopolis.

One of HP Labs’ area of focus is cloud computing, an evolving concept which

holds the promise of radically changing the way companies acquire their software

and computing capacity in the future.

The establishment of HP labs Singapore will definitely place us in a position to

become a leader and innovator in these technologies.

Around the same time, Roche announced the setting up of a Translational

Medicine hub and committed a budget of more than $130 million over 3 years

with the objectives of discovering and developing new and improved treatments

in cancer and infectious diseases.

The Translational Medicine Hub will be working closely with the public biomedical

community in research collaborations.

And not too long ago, Eli Lilly committed more than $200 million to set up the

Lilly-Singapore Centre for drug discovery.

of 21

Besides attracting corporate R&D to Singapore, equally, if not more significantly

is how we leverage on our capabilities to grow new industry clusters.

Prior to 2006, there was no biologic manufacturing in Singapore.

Over many years, our scientists and process engineers together with EDB

worked very hard and creatively to demonstrate to the large pharmaceutical

companies that we have the necessary capabilities to support such an industry.

We finally landed the first investment with Lonza in late 2006, a contract biologic

manufacturer.

Within a period of 18 months hence, we attracted a total of US$2 billion

investment in 5 plants with a potential employment of over 1,500 jobs when the

plants are ready.

The other major biologic manufacturers include Genentech (now part of Roche),

GSK, Novartis and Baxter.

Our collaboration with Lonza has since moved on to their investment in a Cell

Therapy Processing Facility to support stem cell therapy work in this region.

All these have added significantly to the vibrancy of Singapore’s R&D landscape.

National Level R&D Outcomes

Let me now discuss some of the more macro outcomes catalysed by Singapore’s

investment in R&D.

of 21

Economic Impact: GERD/BERD & Job Creation

Firstly, Singapore’s commitment to R&D has resulted in a steady increase in our

Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) which has risen from 0.8% in 1990 to 2.6%

in 2008, a CAGR of almost 7% on top of our GDP growth rates.

More significantly, the Business Expenditure on R&D (or BERD) increased from

54% to 72% of GERD over the same period.

In effect, for every dollar spent on public R&D in Singapore, more than two

dollars were spent on private R&D, up from a ratio of about 1:1 twenty years ago.

This has correspondingly created a lot of R&D jobs both in the public as well as

the private sector.

As an indication, the number of Researchers, Scientists and Engineers or RSEs

in R&D jobs grew from 14,500 in the year 2000 to 25,500 in 2008.

This is also a CAGR of 7%.

Over the same period, job creation in the private sector outpaced that of the

public sector both generally, and also in the demand for PhD-level researchers.

This is remarkable considering how much we have grown the public sector R&D

investments.

In 2008, three fifths of the total RSEs work in the private sector.

Singapore is on track to achieve the target of 3% GERD this year and is entering

the league of research intensive countries.

of 21

Even then, Singapore will still lag behind a few other small research intensive

economies such as Finland, Israel, Sweden, and South Korea,

They all enjoy GERD of 3.5% or more.

These countries are setting even higher GERD targets to either sustain or

enhance their economic competitiveness.

For example, under South Korea’s 577 initiative, they aim to boost their status as

a science and technology powerhouse with a GERD of 5% in 2012.

Finland has set a target of achieving 4% during the period of 2007-2011.

Israel is already well over 4%.

In order to keep pace and as recommended by the Economic Strategies

Committee, Singapore has also extended its GERD target from 3% in 2010 to

3.5% in 2015 to signal our intent to be Asia’s Innovation Capital, and to be the

preferred location for companies investing in R&D in this region.

Knowledge Creation

Beyond the dollars invested, Singapore has also fared well in the area of

knowledge creation.

Before 1986, Singapore had only published a cumulative total of about 2,000

scientific papers and accounted for less than 0.1% of the world’s total scientific

publications.

of 21

By 2006, Singapore has produced a total of more than 25,000 scientific papers.

Correspondingly, our share of the world’s total scientific publications has

increased by more than 6-fold to over 0.6%.

And in terms of scientific papers per capita, based on the Wiley-Black’s survey

released in 2007, Singapore topped the list with a total of 1.4 papers per capita,

surpassing many developed countries such as the United States, the United

Kingdom, Germany and Japan.

Beyond the quantitative jump, we also produce some of the best research.

In 2009, Nature journal, one of the most prestigious and highest impact scientific

journals in the world, ranked institutions in the Asia-Pacific region by the number

of research publications in its portfolio of Nature-branded journals.

A*STAR came in 7th after five Japanese institutions and one Chinese institution,

namely, the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

This is quite respectable considering how young we are as a research enterprise.

At the national level, Singapore was ranked the fifth most prolific country, after

Japan, China, Australia and South Korea based on absolute ranking.

Innovation – Patenting and licensing

Our research is also beginning to be translated to commercial outcomes.

Patenting activities by research performers in Singapore have grown by almost

three-fold, from a total of 579 patents filed in 1998 to 1581 in 2008.

of 21

Significantly, Singapore’s patenting rate per capita in the United States has also

expanded over the last decade and is now approaching the level of strong

innovators such as Canada, Germany and Sweden.

And while we still lag behind countries like Finland and Switzerland in Europe

and Japan, South Korea and Taiwan in Asia 1, our patent numbers are growing

at more than 10% per annum, a rate faster than almost all other developed

nations.

The amount of private sector sales revenue from commercialised

products/processes attributed to R&D performed in Singapore has also grown by

60% to S$21.5 billion in this decade.2

Innovativeness

On innovation, Singapore has also done well in international rankings.

In “The Atlantic Century”, a study done jointly by the Information Technology

and Innovation Foundation3 and the European-American Business Council4,

that benchmarked the global innovation-based competitiveness of 36 countries

1 Source: Singapore Competitiveness Report

2 Source: National R&D Survey 2008

3 a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy think tank based in Washington

4 recognised by the European Commission as the official European Business Organisation in

America

of 21

against the United States and the European Union, Singapore was ranked 1st,

above Sweden (2), South Korea (5), the United States (6) and Finland (7).

In another Innovation Index produced jointly by the Boston Consulting Group

and the National Association of Manufacturers, Singapore was also ranked 1st

among 110 countries.

Talent

So, what explained all these achievements?

Without dwelling on them, what is clear is the very strong and steady government

support for R&D in Singapore, both in the public and the private sector.

Naturally, this also leverages on what Singapore has already created over many

years, namely, our English speaking environment; our respect for Intellectual

Property with a clear legal framework; our focus on making Singapore one of the

most liveable cities in the world and certainly in Asia; and our global connectivity

with excellent public infrastructure.

More specifically will be our innovation in terms of leadership and organisation.

We have taken a much more integrated approach to developing our R&D

landscape and in putting together the value proposition to make Singapore

attractive for corporations to either establish de novo or grow their R&D activities

in Singapore.

of 21

These strategies are well captured in the Economic Strategies Committee’s

report and they are “Integrating for Impact”, Gearing for Growth” and “Seeding for

Surprises”.

Under “Integrating for Impact”, a strategy targeted at the MNCs and Globally

Competitive Companies, we take a customised approach for these big players.

What we are doing for Roche in their Translational Medicine Hub illustrates this

concept well.

We then seek to couple our approach for the MNCs with creating opportunities

for our SMEs through forming supply chain relationships in a strategy that is

coined as “Gearing for Growth”.

The Aerospace Consortium that A*STAR initiated, brings together the large

multinationals and our local players to ensure that the local supply chain is

always plugged in, remains relevant and of value to the MNCs.

The last strategy is really to ensure that there will be a pipeline of new science

and technology-based companies to ensure that the SME sector remains vibrant.

This strategy is called “Seeding for Surprises”, recognising that it is really

impossible to identify the winners and that what is important is that there is a

viable eco-system for enterprises to form and grow.

Of course, all these strategies will amount to little without a critical mass of

scientific, innovation and enterprise talent.

The availability of talent underpins the success of a knowledge-based innovation-

driven economy.

of 21

We could have the most advanced scientific infrastructure, but these could be

replicated easily.

I have been travelling to many places in the last few years.

Invariably, not only do I witness many science or high-tech parks in these places,

many are also attached with the suffix of polis.

In fact, when I was in South Korea a month ago, I visited Daedeok Innopolis.

This science park has been around for the last 30 years and the place was

renamed as Daedeok Innopolis just 4 years ago.

On that same trip, what truly intrigued the South Koreans is how we managed to

attract the world class international scientific talent to Singapore.

This is one significant aspect of our R&D system in Singapore that has really

differentiated us from the other countries in Asia

As a country with a small population and to expediently ramp up the R&D sector,

we have adopted a two prong approach to hiring talent especially in areas where

we did not already have deep strengths such as in biomedical sciences.

We have simultaneously recruited both the eminent and established scientists

and the emerging and enthusiastic scientists to be.

The internationally renowned scientists were brought in to help jump-start

Singapore’s biomedical sciences efforts, lead our research institutes and

spearhead research programmes, and at the same time, mentor and nurture our

young local scientists.

of 21

Some of these luminaries include Prof Sir David Lane and Edison Liu.

David is the chief scientist of A*STAR while Ed runs the Genome Institute of

Singapore, the first institute to be set up at Biopolis.

David was at one stage also the Chief Scientist of Cancer Research UK and was

once the founding Chief Executive of a biotech company.

Ed came to Singapore on the promise of Biopolis and contributed significantly to

putting Singapore on the world class biomedical research landscape through

Genomics.

Since then, we have many other eminent scientists who have joined our ranks.

During the financial crisis, we added a few more.

Given what is happening in Europe and the US, we are now in a position to be

quite selective in who we hire.

Singapore has also made good progress in building a pipeline of local talents, via

a series of scholarships, attachments and outreach programmes.

I am pleased to say that in July this year, A*STAR has attained its target of

nurturing a pipeline of 1,000 scholars by 2010.

Of these more than 1,000 scholars, 240 have already completed their PhD

studies and are actively pursuing R&D careers in Singapore in a wide variety of

sectors – this includes our research institutes, the universities, and also the

industries.

of 21

And even though these are early days for our scholars, many of them have

already distinguished themselves by having first author publications and patents

to their name.

I want to add that most of these scholars are native Singaporeans.

of 21

Singapore’s Collaborations with Imperial College

I should also say that many of these scholars have chosen to pursue their

undergraduate education at Imperial College.5

This certainly augurs well for the future strength of Imperial College Alumni in

Singapore.

So, let me now turn to Imperial College.

Throughout its more than 100 year history, Imperial College has had an

outstanding reputation in Engineering and the Sciences.

However, it was not until 1997 that Imperial College took up the calling of

educating future doctors, and since then, the Imperial College School of Medicine

has consistently been ranked as one of the top 3 medical schools in the United

Kingdom with a reputation for quality that reaches far beyond.

This result is in no small part due to Imperial College’s ability to build and expand

upon its fundamental strengths in Engineering and the Sciences.

This parallels Singapore’s entry into the Biomedical Sciences (BMS) scene.

While Singapore had twenty years of science and technology plans, the

5 The numbers cited is current (not cumulative) as of June 2010. According to AGA, 37 out of 154

NSS(BS) scholars are studying at Imperial College, the most popular destination amongst all schools. The

2nd most popular destination is Cambridge with 31 students, followed by Cornell with 11 students.

of 21

biomedical capabilities were built up only in this ten years with the launch of

Biopolis.

Today, the BMS sector is a pillar of Singapore’s economy, alongside traditional

clusters in electronics, engineering and chemicals.

In 2009, BMS accounted for 10% of the manufacturing output and 21% of the

manufacturing value added, more than doubling what was achieved back in

2000.

As an educator of future scientists, Imperial College has been an invaluable

partner in Singapore’s R&D aspirations, collaborating with our autonomous

universities and also A*STAR.

Imperial College is one of the universities to have a split-site PhD program with

A*STAR, whereby PhD students are able to do two years of research in

Singapore and two years in Imperial College, earning their PhD in four years

while receiving valuable research training in two different systems.

This A*STAR-Imperial Partnership PhD Programme (AIP) currently boasts four

participants and six alumni.

Professor Stephen Smith, the Principal of Imperial College’s faculty of medicine,

has also expressed interest in pursuing opportunities for Imperial College to have

their students attached to A*STAR Research Institutes in an interesting reverse

flow of Imperial students to Singapore.

of 21

Imperial College also collaborates with A*STAR Research Institutes in various

research areas.

Just this year, A*STAR’s Institute of Medical Biology and Imperial College were

jointly awarded a grant to shed light on the signaling pathways employed by two

rogue strains of the gut bacteria Escherichia coli.

One strain is a leading cause of infant mortality in developing countries, while the

other is predominant in developed countries and can cause gastric flu.

In another collaboration with A*STAR, Imperial College researchers will partner

with Singapore’s Immunology Network to study how white blood cells respond to

the Streptococcus bacterium that can cause the disease strep throat.

And of course, as mentioned earlier, the joint collaboration between Imperial

College and NTU to establish a new medical school in Singapore.

The school aims to admit its first cohort of 50 students in 2013, and will gradually

increase its annual intake to around 150 new students at steady state.

Minister of Education, Dr. Ng Eng Hen, noted that this will improve the doctor-to-

patient ratio and quality of health care by 2015 when two new public hospitals

(Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Jurong General Hospital) will be running at full

capacity.

This new school will be well-positioned to meet the healthcare demands and

needs of the future.

of 21

NTU and Imperial College can also leverage on their established strengths in

Science and Technology to advance healthcare delivery and practice, benefiting

Singaporeans and society in the process.

On behalf of both NTU and Imperial College, I would therefore like to urge the

Imperial College alumni to give your fullest support to this new venture when

called upon especially when Imperial College is now here with you in Singapore.

The Way Forward

As Singapore moves out of the recession into a potentially record-setting growth

recovery year, we hope to build on this momentum to further leverage on our

R&D enterprise to create even greater impact for Singapore.

The post-crisis landscape is in Singapore’s favour.

With the further shift of markets to Asia, Singapore can capitalise on our

differentiating advantages of being a highly liveable, efficient and cosmopolitan

city state with an educated workforce to seize this window of opportunity over the

next 5 to 10 years to become the home for private sector R&D activities in Asia in

partnership with our world-class public sector R&D institutes; a hub for innovation

and enterprise; and a location of choice for the commercialization of research.

In other words, we strive to be a key global R&D hub and Asia’s Innovation

Capital.

of 21

With that, let me thank you for your attention and I look forward to your questions

and comments.

Thank you.

speech by mr lim chuan poh, chairman, … sep...the imperial college alumni association of singapore...

Documents