Media Division, Ministry of Information and The Arts

___________________________________________________________

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentleman

It gives me great pleasure to officiate at this Symposium this morning which is being held to mark the first decade of the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB).

The Symposium has attracted more than 1,500 participants from China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taipei, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Australia, Europe, Canada, USA and Singapore. Many of you have made landmark contributions in your field of research. Several are pioneers in the fields of molecular genetics, cell regulation, cancer, AIDS and anti-viral research. Some of your works have sparked off whole industries in the bio-medical arena.

Ten years ago, I had the privilege of officially opening the IMCB. During the past ten years, the IMCB has made considerable progress.The high quality of research work carried out at the Institute has brought distinction to Singapore.

IMCB has established itself as an internationally renowned institute and is serving as a magnet to draw research talents to Singapore from around the world.

The IMCB is a reflection of how far Singapore has progressed, particularly in the field of Research and Development (R&D).

R&D plays a crucial role in the development of Singapore’s economy. From the beginning of our industrialization programme, we have implemented strategies to attract value-added investments from multi-national companies. These strategies have paid off handsomely as the investments have given us access to relevant technologies that have helped power our economy to what it is today. As we move into the next stage of our economic development where we would have to rely more on innovation-driven growth, the importance of R&D will increase even further.

In this next phase of our development, Singapore cannot depend entirely on imported technologies to power its economy.

We need to develop indigenous expertise and capabilities that will help us to better assimilate imported technologies, as well as to gain an edge in the increasingly intense global competition for resources and markets.

The research institutes and centres sponsored or supported by the Government play three critical roles:

First, to support the upgrading of our industry, through joint R&D projects, training R&D manpower, licensing and technology transfer.

Second, to help create new industry by prepositioning Singapore with capability build up so that we can seize the opportunities when they present themselves.

Third, to serve as a magnet to draw investments and talents to Singapore.

Based on this broad charter, the research institutes and centres have to tailor their individual roles depending on the scientific disciplines or technological areas, as well as the industries which they address.

Singapore has made progress in our efforts to build a R&D base but the road ahead will become even more demanding. We must set challenging goals for our research institutes and centres. The National Science & Technology Board (NSTB) will work with them to benchmark our institutes and centres with equivalent ones across the world. This will help us learn from the well established centres, so that our research institutes and centres can become even more relevant and reach world class standards.

As human resource is Singapore’s only natural resource, we have always placed emphasis on manpower development. Over the years, we have invested heavily in education and diligently built up our basic R&D framework. We are continually striving to improve our school system and develop our universities into world-class institutions, in terms of both teaching and research, to provide our economy with excellent trained manpower and relevant technological capabilities for the future.

However, given our small population base, we cannot realistically expect to develop all the technologies that we need with our indigenous population. We will, therefore, continue to welcome investments, technologies and talent from all over the world to augment our indigenous capabilities. In critical areas of R&D where Singapore does not have sufficient expertise, foreign talent can help us to jump-start developments and shorten the time required to build up our capabilities.

The R&D Survey conducted by NSTB in 1995 estimated that there were about 8,000 Research Scientists & Engineers (RSEs) in Singapore. To support the projected growth in Singapore’s high-tech, high value-added economy, we need to increase this number to about 13,000 by year 2000, a net increase of 5,000 high quality talents. The supply of R&D talents from our local universities and Singaporeans studying overseas, can probably only account for about 60% of the demand. The shortfall has to be made up by foreign talents.

The NSTB, in collaboration with the universities and other agencies like the Economic Development Board, has embarked on a comprehensive effort to attract and recruit R&D talent for Singapore.

The initiatives include:

a)Helping companies and Research Institutes (RIs) to source for suitable candidates world-wide;

b)Defraying part of the cost of attracting and recruiting talented RSEs; and

c)Granting Post-Doctoral and Post-Master Fellowships to outstanding talents, both local and foreign, to undertake research programmes in our universities.

The initial results of these initiatives have been encouraging. In 1996, we increased our Research Scientists & Engineers pool to 10,200. NSTB will continue to look into innovative means to attract talent, both local and foreign, into our R&D community to serve the needs of our economy. Part of this effort will be to continue to enhance awareness of the exciting opportunities offered by a career in R&D in Singapore.

Having all these R&D talents is only the first step. The next crucial step is to ensure that they are deployed in such a way that they can make the maximum contribution to the economy.

With increasing global competition, where success is often a matter of being the first to bring new technologies to the market, the priority is on more downstream industry applications type of research. Although increased industry participation in R&D is encouraging, a disproportionate shift away from fundamental research would bring its own breed of problems, such as potential loss of future generations of technologies, loss of the general information framework for problem solving that basic research generates, and a potential discontinuity in the training of future generations of RSEs.

To hedge against such risks, and yet maintain an edge in the fast-paced markets of today, some countries are moving towards a smarter brand of basic research with a much shorter time horizon than in the past. Directed basic research integrates the problem solving activities of basic research with applied research, thus resulting in a regime that blurs the distinction between the two.

We have attempted to bridge the gap between upstream research and application-oriented downstream research through our investments in Research Institutes such as the IMCB. Our Research Institutes play an important role in linking academia to industry by bringing technology to the end-users, as well as gathering feedback from industry to academia. Part of this role includes the nurturing of technology start-up companies that are subsequently spun off into industry to commercialize the outputs of their R&D.

The IMCB has excelled in responding to this call for directed capabilities building. IMCB has, over the last ten years, developed a fundamental research capability on which we can build the foundation of a new industry in Singapore. Through the efforts of its director, Professor Chris Tan, the IMCB has also started a commendable programme, in conjunction with the National University of Singapore, dedicated to developing highly qualified talents, leading to a PhD. This programme, which was started at IMCB’s inauguration 10 years ago, has produced 51 PhD graduates from more than 10 countries.

At the same time, IMCB has spun off a company called Gene-Singapore. Gene-Singapore has not only been active in exploring the commercial potential of IMCB’s research efforts, but has also been successful in sourcing for potential collaboration partners. The balance that IMCB has struck, by emphasizing both research which is relevant to industry, and teaching to build up fundamental capabilities, is indeed commendable.

This Symposium organized by IMCB will provide a useful opportunity for the cross-fertilization of ideas in a wide range of subjects. I hope that new ideas and fruitful collaborations will spring forth from this meeting of minds. On its 10^th Anniversary, let me wish IMCB more decades of success.

It now gives me great pleasure to declare the IMCB’s 10^th Anniversary Symposium open.