Facts on Science, Technology and Innovation

Contents:

• Background Information
• Science and Innovation Research Strategies
• S&T Organisations

Background Information

Singapore’s government views R&D as a driver for economic growth and as a foundation for the city state’s long term competitiveness. Over the last decades, R&D has been supported by the strong and sustained public investment. Representative of these efforts, public expenditure on R&D has consistently continued to increase over the last 10 years, reaching S$3.3 billion in 2014 or 0.8% of GDP. Firms also invest heavily in research and development with private sector expenditure at 1.3% of GDP and around 880 companies reporting R&D activity. The total R&D investment in 2014 (GERD) was S$ 8.5 billion (around € 5.7 billion) with an R&D intensity (GERD/GDP) of 2.2% (roughly stable since 2011 with 2.0% in 2013). (A*STAR 2014).

R&D expenditure in Singapore is channelled to key sectors, in which the country aims to develop a critical mass of research intensive industry and in which the greatest perceived potential for economic gain has been identified. The government takes Singapore’s national requirements into account, especially the country’s lack of natural resources and its existing industry, when deciding on the sectors in which the investment on R&D should be focused. R&D development plans are closely linked to Singapore’s industrial development plans and to date, the city state has been adept at levering off its historical manufacturing strengths to move up the value chain from labour intensive to innovation and knowledge intensive production. (Degelsegger &Sukprasertchai 2014).

Science and Innovation Research Strategies

The targets and the budget for the STI policy in Singapore are outlined in the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) Plan. The RIE is updated every 5 years, with the RIE 2015-2019 currently in place.

Alongside the more long standing goals of attracting and nurturing talent and promoting innovation, the prior RIE 2011-2015 already placed great emphasis on technology commercialisation to recoup some of the cost of R&D by encouraging public-private R&D partnerships and establishment of technology transfer offices and enterprise incubators (OECD 2013 op cit; Teh 2010). The RIE Plan 2020 defines four major thrusts:

1. closer integration of research thrusts
2. stronger dynamic towards the best teams and ideas
3. sharper focus on value creation
4. better optimised RIE manpower

A total public budget of S$ 19 billion (per year around 1% of GDP) has been reserved to pursue the goals of the RIE 2015-2019 (S$ 16.1 billion from 2011-2015 and S$ 13.55 billion between 2006 and 2010). The resources are invested in four technology domains

• advanced manufacturing and engineering
• health and biomedical sciences
• urban solutions and sustainability
• services and the digital economy

and in three cross-cutting programmes: academic research, manpower, innovation and enterprise. S$ 2.5 billion are also reserved for so-called 'white space' funding, which can be prioritised at a later stage (NRF 2016).

The investments in R&D are complemented by policies to develop human capital and scientific infrastructure. Singapore has had sustained emphasis on building human resource competencies and Singapore has a well-developed tertiary education system. In addition, the Singapore government has actively attracted several leading universities to operate branch campuses in Singapore. Another key aspect of Singapore’s competence-building policy is its policy towards attracting foreign talent. To supplement the local supply of skilled labour, the government has consistently adopted a liberal immigration policy to attract overseas skills.(Degelsegger &Sukprasertchai 2014).

S&T Organisations

The degree to which R&D is considered a core policy area in Singapore’s governance system becomes visible in the Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council (RIEC), chaired by the Prime Minister. The RIEC decides on the overarching R&D strategy and national funding envelope. The RIEC advises the cabined of Singapore on national innovation policies and strategies and aims at strengthening coordination of different programmes and initiatives by different ministries and agencies.

In parallel to the establishment of the RIEC, the National Research Foundation (NRF) was also set up in 2006 under the PM’s Office to support the Council. NRF is responsible for the implementation and support of Singapore’s R&D strategy set by the RIEC and overseeing national R&D activities. The National Research Foundation allocates its budget through combination of top-down and bottom-up instruments supporting institutes of higher learning and public research institutes in their research and innovation endeavours. The National Research Foundation implements top-down Strategic Research Programmes in biomedical sciences, environment and water technologies and interactive & digital media as well as the National Innovation Challenge focusing on complex national challenges whose solution helps Singapore in the establishment of new industries. NRF’s bottom-up programmes include the Competitive Research Programme, a funding scheme, which fosters the formation of multi-disciplinary cutting-edge research teams, or the Research Centres of Excellence: long-term investments to create world-class research centres in Singaporean universities.

S&T policy in Singapore is not formulated in isolation, but as an integral part of a larger economic development strategy. Correspondingly, Singapore does not have a separate Ministry of Science and Technology but instead these policy-making and implementation functions have been subsumed by the ministries involved in economic development, particularly the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), which is responsible for co-ordinating science and technology policies and formulating key economic policies for the country, in addition the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts and Ministry of Education.

The main statutory boards under MTI implementing STI policies are Economic Development Board (EDB), the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and SPRING Singapore.

• A*STAR has the mandate to foster world-class scientific research and talent for an innovative Singapore and is a main source of public R&D funding and has a key role in setting the priorities for research. A*STAR comprises of 2 Research Co.uncils (under which 18 research institutions sit), 6 consortia and 3 centres. A*STAR also has a Joint Council to promote the integration between the research councils. A*STAR has a technology spin off arm and a graduate academy. A*STAR provides competitive funding programmes for researchers in publicly funded institutions (within and outside A*STAR) in areas of national and A*STAR priority (biomedical science, physical sciences and engineering).
• SPRING is a funding agency, which promotes entrepreneurship and small and medium sized enterprises’ (SMEs) development R&D efforts through various financial schemes. SPRING aims at: 1) helping to capalyse technology projects; 2) provide seed funding for technology start-ups; 3) finance project workforce; and 4) investing in infrastructure.  
• EDB aims at enhancing Singapore’s position as a global business centre by attracting inward foreign direct investment and multinational corporations and corporate R&D laboratories to Singapore.

Key R&D Figures

R&D investment in 2014 (GERD) was S$ 8.5 billion (around € 5.7 billion) with an R&D intensity (GERD/GDP) of 2.2% (against 2.0% in 2013 and 2.2% in 2011). Public investment in R&D was at 0.8% of GDP in 2014, fuelling research activity in 68 public institutions. For the period 2011-2015, a total public budget of S$ 16.1 billion had been reserved to support research and innovation (Research, Innovation and Enterprise Plan) compared to S$ 13.55 billion between 2006 and 2010. 882 companies indicating R&D activity in 2014 have invested S$ 5.2 billion (€ 3.5 billion) or 1.3% of GDP in research and development. With these investments, the following research outputs have been produced:

• 1,965 patent applications (first filings) in 2014 as a result of R&D based in Singapore (8% decrease from 2013; slight growth compared to earlier years); out of which 1,131 from the private sector (decrease of 14.5%) and 834 from the public sector (plus 2% compared to 2013); 911 patents (based on R&D carried out in Singapore) have been awarded (decrease of 2.5% from 2013), 707 of which in the private sector
• 16,351 Scopus indexed citable publications in 2015 (15,007 in 2011)

A growing number of researchers and engineers are behind the research outputs. In 2014, 32,835 research scientists and engineers (RSEs; head count; excl. graduate students) worked in Singapore (against 29,482 in 2011 and 28,296 in 2010), out of which 10,151 (31%) were foreign non-permanent resident RSEs. The researcher full-time equivalents (including all research personnel) were 42,542 in 2012, which equates to a researcher intensity of around 12 researchers per 1,000 labour force.

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