Speech by President Tony Tan Keng Yam at the Lindau Meeting International Day Dinner hosted by Singapore

Countess Bettina Bernadotte
President
Council for Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings

Professor Wolfgang Schuerer
Chairman of the Foundation Lindau
Nobelprizewinners Meetings

Members of the Foundation

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Good evening

        Singapore is a small island nation in the tropics that is only slightly larger than Lake Constance. It is a modern city-state, with a multi-cultural population of a little over 5 million and is currently ranked 3^rd worldwide in terms of GDP per capita.  Since our independence in 1965, Singapore has come a long way, progressing from a labour-intensive economy in the 1960s to the capital-intensive economy in the 1980s. In the 1990s, Singapore started investing substantially in Research and Development (R&D) as we prepared ourselves to become a technology-intensive society. The investments in R&D increased rapidly over the years. Today, Singapore is being transformed into a knowledge-intensive, innovative and entrepreneurial economy.

Transforming Singapore into a Knowledge-Based Economy

        R&D is an important part of Singapore’s economic strategy.  It is a source of innovation and value creation. Singapore has been investing in R&D at an increasing rate for more than 20 years. In 2006, we started referring to the government’s investment in R&D more broadly as investments in Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE), recognising the role that innovation and entrepreneurship play in bringing research discoveries to serve the market and society. 

        Since the launch of the first National Technology Plan in 1991, Singapore’s R&D expenditure has increased tenfold, from S$760 million in 1991 to S$6b in 2009. The public budget for Research, Innovation and Enterprise under the current 5 year plan from 2011 to 2015 is S$16.1 billion, which is a 20% increase from the $13.5 billion committed for the previous 5 years. S$16.1 is about €10b at current exchange rates.

        These investments have helped to build a significant base of R&D capabilities. Today, Singapore has a spectrum of industry-oriented research institutes across engineering and biomedical sciences, covering areas such as data storage, microelectronics, genomics and immunology. Our universities have established research excellence in areas such as energy, water and biomedical sciences.

        R&D has helped to sustain the competitiveness of established sectors such as manufacturing and electronics and seeded new growth sectors such as Biomedical Sciences and Clean Technology.

Singapore – A Vibrant R&D Hub

        With more than two decades of sustained investments in R&D, Singapore is now home to several world-class research universities, leading edge research centres, institutes and corporate labs.

        Singapore is a bustling cosmopolitan city-state - a gateway between the East and the West. The scientific community in Singapore reflects this cosmopolitan make-up with many top faculty and researchers recruited from all over the globe. Singapore has established extensive research collaborations with many world-renowned universities, and provided various platforms for scientists to collaborate in research that address complex global challenges. 

        Over the last 5 years, Singapore has set up five sizeable research centres which we term, ‘Research Centres of Excellence (RCEs)’ within our two major universities to conduct world-class investigator-led research with global impact. The RCEs have succeeded in attracting many top research minds to Singapore. These RCEs have already made significant scientific impact despite their recent establishment. For example, the first RCE, the Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT), which you will hear a little about shortly, has demonstrated the ability to carry out complex experiments to create a Bose-Einstein condensate, at a temperature close to absolute zero, allowing them to make the claim that the CQT lab at the National University of Singapore, is indeed the ‘coolest’ place on the equator!

        Being a small country, Singapore places great emphasis on global talent development. Besides nurturing home-grown research talents through scholarships and mentorship programmes, Singapore has also been successful in attracting many foreign talent researchers to augment our capabilities.  The Singapore National Research Foundation Fellowship, which comes with a generous research grant of S$3m or about €1.8m for 5 years, has been awarded to 48 outstanding young scientists selected throughout in the past five years.  These bright young scientists have moved to Singapore to take up tenure-track positions at our universities or research institutes, while enjoying complete independence in pursuing their research under the Fellowship award.

Developing R&D Capabilities to Address National and Global Challenges

        Through our investments in R&D, Singapore aims to produce innovative and impactful solutions that will not only solve Singapore’s challenges and make life better for Singaporeans, but also develop solutions that are applicable and useful to other countries.

        In this regard, Singapore, as a small country, is ideally suited to be a Living Lab – highly conducive for the test-bedding and validation of new concepts and ideas. This means that companies are able, not just to carry out research in the labs, but can also build prototypes as proofs-of-concept and subsequently test-bed these prototypes on a small scale before building actual systems and solutions that can be exported to the rest of the world.

GYSS Announcement

        Singapore has always been an active global hub – whether it is for transportation, commerce, finance or as a meeting place for international events. In line with this, and drawing inspiration from Lindau, I am pleased to announce that Singapore will be hosting the inaugural Global Young Scientists Summit (GYSS) in January 2013. The GYSS is a gathering in Singapore for bright young researchers from all over the world to come together and be inspired by internationally eminent science and technology leaders.  GYSS will discuss the latest advances in science and technology, and how research can be harnessed to address major global challenges. It is a multi-disciplinary summit, covering the basic sciences of chemistry, physics and medicine but also including mathematics, computer science and engineering. More information on the GYSS is available outside in the foyer.

        We have prepared for you this evening, a programme that will offer you a glimpse of the vibrant scientific and research environment of Singapore. But in addition to that, we have also not forgotten to share the sights and sounds, and the culture and tastes of modern, cosmopolitan Singapore. I hope you will enjoy the rest of the programme.

        Thank you.