Building on their successful collaboration in setting up the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and Imperial College London have signed a new strategic university-wide partnership to expand their scope of collaboration across research, education, and innovation and enterprise.
The two universities are establishing the NTU-Imperial Health, Sustainability and Technology Hub (NTU-Imperial Research Hub), which will focus on collaborative research in fields of scientific research and development that tackle some of the world’s most pressing challenges:
- Artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics for healthcare
- Healthy cities and pollution
- Energy and sustainability
- Business and management
- Neuroscience
- Infectious disease modelling
The new NTU-Imperial Research Hub builds on existing areas of collaboration, such as in joint education and research initiatives. The two universities continue to fund innovative education programmes and research projects that support early-stage collaboration among academics, researchers, and students.
The partnership is signed today on the NTU Smart Campus by the two universities’ presidents – Professor Subra Suresh and Professor Hugh Brady, who led a delegation of senior university representatives on his inaugural visit to NTU.
NTU President Prof Subra Suresh said: “NTU and Imperial enjoy a longstanding and close relationship, forged not only through working together on the joint medical school, but also through collaborations in areas of research and innovation. Entering a new strategic partnership underscores the depth of cooperation between the two universities, which is driven by a shared vision to strengthen capabilities in research, education, and innovation.
“The NTU-Imperial Research Hub, established as part of our new partnership, will support both universities as we pursue research aimed at tackling some of humanity’s grand challenges. These goals are also articulated in NTU 2025, the University’s five-year strategic plan, and they include such topics as mitigating our impact on the environment and responding to the needs and challenges of healthy living and ageing.”
Imperial President Prof Hugh Brady said: “This new Research Hub will help seed the most ambitious projects and ideas in healthcare, sustainability and technology. From tackling pollution in our cities, to developing future transport and using AI to improve healthcare – the Hub will enable UK and Singaporean scientists to work together for the benefit of society.
“Global partnerships like this one are helping Imperial to transform lives and create opportunity around the world. Imperial and Nanyang Technological University have been collaborating together for decades and have made significant discoveries and scientific breakthroughs. This latest partnership demonstrates our long-term commitment to developing world-class science and tech clusters in Singapore.”
Strengthening the NTU-Imperial connection
Through the NTU-Imperial Health, Sustainability and Technology Hub the two universities will explore ways that new technology can be harnessed to improve diagnostics, treatments, and care of patients.
NTU and Imperial will also combine their expertise in energy, materials, and decarbonisation to help create more sustainable cities and a zero-pollution society.
The NTU-Imperial Research Hub builds on decades of collaboration between the two universities in research, education, and innovation, including a joint research seed fund to kickstart ‘blue-skies’ research, and a joint education seed fund to encourage faculty and students to work together to develop new online experiential learning opportunities using digital technologies.
The partnership will also see the two universities carry out joint training for PhD students and early career researchers and promote academic and knowledge exchange between the institutions.
New research projects that have been identified include the development of a diabetes artificial intelligence network led by NTU LKCMedicine’s Professor Josip Car in collaboration with Imperial’s Dr Pantelis Georgiou and Professor Nick Oliver.
Using statistical models to improve estimates of the potential extent of flooding in at-risk areas is the focus of a research project between Assistant Professor David Lallemant and research fellow Dr Michele Nguyen from NTU’s Asian School of the Environment, together with Imperial’s Professor Almut Veraat.
NTU has also been one of Imperial’s three partners since 2017 under its Global Fellows Programme, a collaborative summer school programme for PhD students to develop professional, research, and collaborative competencies as well as the intercultural awareness that is required to establish and continue successful collaborations.
NTU and Imperial signed a collaboration agreement in 2010 to jointly set up the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. That successful collaboration will be completed in 2028, with NTU to award its own medical degrees from 2029. The two universities have been in discussions on expanding their fruitful partnership into other strategic areas, which has now given rise to the NTU-Imperial Health, Sustainability and Technology Hub.
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