200 of its top minds will link up with local talent to jumpstart research powerhouse
AFTER a 10-year engagement, Singapore and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have tied the knot.
The decade of research and teaching tie-ups between MIT, the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has culminated in MIT's most ambitious international effort to date.About 200 of MIT's top minds will join hands with local and regional researchers at a centre here dubbed Smart - the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology.
By 2010, they will join other global powerhouses at a new research campus at the NUS University Town @ Warren. The campus will boast academic, sporting and leisure facilities, as well as hostels and shops.
For a start, infectious diseases and environmental sensing and modelling are being put under the microscope.
MIT's first two of five interdisciplinary research groups have already set up operations here, with about 60 researchers working in temporary labs at NUS. When fully operational, about half will be from MIT.
The effort is part of a $1-billion experiment to entice the world's best and brightest research minds here, under a National Research Foundation (NRF) scheme dubbed the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (Create).
Plans are being drawn up to develop laboratories, office space and world-class facilities at the complex.
Using MIT as an example, NRF head Tony Tan said yesterday that research universities can make a big contribution to the economy.
'If the companies founded by MIT graduates and faculty formed an independent nation, the revenues produced by the companies would make that nation the 24th largest economy in the world,' Dr Tan said.
A total of 4,000 MIT-related companies employ 1.1 million people and have annual world sales of US$232 billion (S$325 billion).
Dr Tan pointed out that 64 members of MIT have won the Nobel prize, proving that 'use-inspired research does not compromise the quality of scientific research'.
Speaking at the opening of the fifth international symposium of nano-manufacturing yesterday, he also announced an innovation centre to take great ideas to the marketplace.
In addition, the Education Ministry will match dollar for dollar gifts and donations to Smart to set up Singapore research professorships. These will be held by senior MIT faculty or scientists who are actively involved with Smart research programmes.
MIT provost Rafael Reif outlined his university's contribution to Smart.
'What MIT brings to the union is its talent. Our contribution is the people,' he said.
And it will be a long-haul partnership. Said Smart director Thomas Magnanti: 'We plan on working together for at least another 20 years.'
The exact amount being pumped into Smart is being kept under wraps, but Professor Magnanti, who is MIT's former dean of engineering, estimated it will cost up to US$40 million to run the five research groups every year.
Smart's work here will centre on research that cannot be conducted at MIT.
Said Prof Reif: 'Of the two research areas we've chosen so far, getting access to pathogens from the region and the facilities of environmental sensing labs are not available at MIT, which makes it very attractive to work here.'
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