Domain

Explanation

Astar

• Singapore's national research coordinating body
• Comprising of public and private institutions & organisations
• Funds tertiary research scholarships subject to academic staff proposals
• Focuses on human capital:
• Increase % of RSE (research scientists & engineers)
• Increase replacement of outgoing foreigners with Singaporeans
• Increase % of Ph.D's
• Abundant funding, but criteria: strategic research, tactical applications
• Ph.D: increase % going into work & fewer working; inject excitement; ensures continuous learning, increase knowledge base & increase driver
• New-age products: innovation-driven, aiming for higher value-added & value-creation; emerging competitors like China, India & Malaysia have far lower costs of factors of production
• Move away from technology transfer (works in the past due to passing on created value: no R&D required); now challenges from competitors; increase value needed & challenges
• Singapore positioned high amongst developing countries, but lowest amongst technological countries due to lack of sufficient width & depth in R&D
• Small but advanced countries like Finland, Norway, Iceland, Sweden (Scandinavia), Israel, Japan & USA have intensive knowledge capital: innovation-driven, with high % of patents & Ph.D's

Mission

• Foster world-class scientific research & talent to conduct R&D in Singapore
• Ph.D: requires passion requires motivation requires continuous learning

Macro-view

• Singapore progress:
• 60's: industry-driven economy
• 70's-90's: investment-driven
• 90's-: innovation-driven, requires R&D

Ph.D

• Uses:
• Fewer academic
• More (~80%) industry & research
• Business management
• Examples:
• Companies: Sony, HP managers Ph.D's
• Start-ups: Ednovation, Vislog, STAs
• Venture capitals: Intel, Origin, Israel company

Scholarships

• Nurture students (local & foreign) into talents for Singapore
• Preferred: <30 years
• Bond: P.R. intended for future Singaporeans
• Types:

1. Research scholarships: A-levels onto Ph.D's; ~8 years
2. Pre-graduate: FYP students into post-graduates
3. Local graduate: <5 years inclusive of 1~2 years of overseas attachment
4. Overseas graduate: <5 years; must have gained admission into preferred university (approved by A*); applied to university already
5. International fellowship: post-Ph.D's
6. Additional NSS: graduate fellowship; teaching; service 3 years in Singapore organisation

Advices

• Ph.D: continuous learning & motivation, R&D
• 1^st-class bachelor: experiences only; re-training is still required
• Bonds: either transfer or defer
• R&D with applications in mind: e.g. transistors made by scientists @ Bell labs
• Tied up with certain US/UK or European universities for scholars & professors
• CE: domain-dependent, more likely for R&D potentials like computational mechanics & reusability