Prime Minister's Office (National Research Foundation)

The Minister for Finance and Chairman of the National Research Foundation (Mr Heng Swee Keat): Singapore's research, innovation and enterprise (RIE) efforts will continue to play a key role in driving our future economy and addressing national and societal priorities. Together with researchers, entrepreneurs, companies and Government agencies, the National Research Foundation (NRF) seeks to grow more innovative Singapore-based companies, create more good jobs and improve the lives of Singaporeans.

Singapore's international standings in both research and development (R&D) and in fostering innovation are strong. R&D in our universities and research institutes create economic and societal value for Singapore and enhance our quality of life. Many companies, both foreign and local, recognise Singapore’s R&D value proposition and have deepened their R&D activities here. The Bloomberg Innovation Index has ranked Singapore as the third most innovative economy in the world, and the top innovation hub in our region. We have a vibrant and growing ecosystem of startups, venture capitalists, incubators and accelerators, leveraging Singapore’s strengths as a financial centre and a trusted location to protect intellectual property.

We are sustaining this commitment to RIE. The RIE 2020 Plan is directing $19 billion between 2016 and 2020 towards four focus areas: Advanced Manufacturing and Engineering, Health and Biomedical Sciences, Urban Solutions and Sustainability, and Services and Digital Economy. These are areas of both national need and existing scientific strengths for Singapore. While continuing to invest in academic excellence, we have sharpened our focus in research funding towards creating and capturing value from our R&D investments. This includes investing in research translation, facilitating innovation, and supporting startups and growth companies. Stronger linkages across the value chain are enabling the flow-through of knowledge and technology from research into industry and community applications. The rapid growth in innovative high-technology enterprises in Singapore is encouraging more young Singaporeans to pursue careers built around science and technology.

NRF will continue to harness our national research and innovation capabilities to enhance our economic competitiveness and provide greater opportunities for Singaporeans. By aligning RIE’s efforts more closely to the Future Economy Council’s (FEC's) efforts, we will accelerate the deployment of solutions to enable economic transformation. These include new programmes to support the transformation of our Maritime and Aviation sectors to sustain Singapore’s status as an international transport and logistics hub, and the development of a more responsive and resilient next-generation energy grid architecture. We will expand our investment in digital and automation technologies, including robotics and artificial intelligence. These investments support the FEC’s efforts to encourage adoption of digitalisation and automation across our economic sectors.

We will support the growth of Singapore-based companies through technology translation and knowledge transfer platforms, such as the Technology Consortia and Corporate Laboratory@University initiatives. NRF will continue to support industry to get better at investing in new ideas and facilitate the flow-through of researchers into industry. SGInnovate, a new entity started in 2016, has been expanding its accelerator programmes to support startups and growth-stage companies in deep-technology areas. Working with economic agencies like Enterprise Singapore, it will support Smart Nation efforts in emerging sectors, such as Smart Energy, Digital Manufacturing, Fintech, Digital Health and the Internet of Things. Budding entrepreneurs are matched with mentors, introduced to venture capital firms, and will be able to access R&D talent. Together with other economic agencies, we will facilitate strategic partnerships among Singapore-based companies to expand their capabilities and help them access global markets.

We will continue to invest in growing a strong pool of science and engineering researchers, with links to the global community. We will refresh our strategic investments in major research centres in our universities and in our CREATE (Campus for Research Excellence and Technology Enterprise) collaborations with international partners, and continue to position Singapore as a global node of scientific excellence. Our NRF Fellowships and Investigatorships continue to attract promising young scientists to conduct research in Singapore and provide opportunities for established scientists to pursue groundbreaking research. Our Returning Singaporean Scientists scheme attracts overseas Singaporean scientists home to grow the core of Singaporean researchers and eventually take up leadership positions here. In line with SkillsFuture, we will work with partner agencies and industry to increase the innovation and enterprise talent pool, identify key frontier skillsets in demand, and work with our Institutes of Higher Learning to train more Singaporeans for jobs in these fields.

Our RIE investments have created a strong foundation for the next stage of Singapore’s development. We must continue to exploit new knowledge to diversify and create new industries, meet national and social needs, and create a Singapore with opportunities for all. In a competitive world changing rapidly with technological advances, we must also remain connected to the world as a vibrant Global-Asia node of technology, innovation and enterprise.