A very good morning to all of you and I am very happy to join you this morning for the Fourth Urban Sustainability R&D Congress.

 

Since our independence in 1965, in just over 50 years, Singapore has undergone rapid urbanisation and transformation. Through hard work and long-term planning, we have built a distinctive city in a garden and a more liveable environment for our people. 

 

Today, we consistently rank amongst the top cities in the world in many elite table rankings. I think that is an achievement that all of us can be very proud of, but we cannot assume that we have arrived and rest on our laurels. We must continue to work hard to improve and transform our city, so that we can create good jobs and opportunities for Singaporeans. And in some ways, the journey ahead in our next phase will be more challenging. Competition is becoming more intense, and there are new challenges arising.

 

In the past, we could learn from the experience of others and adapt overseas solutions to our own circumstances. When we faced a problem, we said, “Let’s go for a study visit. Let’s go to this country that has done it well.” We would study, we would ask them questions, and we would come back and apply the solutions to Singapore.

 

Nowadays, we are in many ways operating at the frontier in many areas, and so we must invest in our own research to push the boundaries ourselves. It does not mean that we do not have anything else to learn from others. We still have to. We still go for overseas study trips. But when we go overseas and ask them questions, sometimes they ask us, “What are you doing in Singapore? Please tell us as we are facing the same challenges.” So we have to do our own research, invest in research, push the boundaries ourselves to find cutting-edge solutions to address new and increasingly complex urban challenges.   

 

For example, we will need to mitigate the impacts of climate change, such as extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and increased overall temperatures. We need to optimise our limited resources in land, water, energy, and manpower. We will also need to manage the rise in urban density while maintaining a highly liveable and sustainable living environment within Singapore.

 

And as I said earlier, these are all issues that many other cities are grappling with – both developing cities, as well as developed cities. Many cities are searching for solutions too.

 

So the research we undertake in these areas can become a source of competitive advantage. Singapore can be a living laboratory for researchers from all over the world to experiment and scale up urban solutions quickly, and demonstrate active deployment of innovative concepts. By growing our research capabilities and developing innovative urban solutions, we can commercialise and export these solutions to other cities as well.

 

This is why the government has been investing more in R&D efforts across disciplines and along the entire value chain of research - upstream, as well as downstream research. The Urban Solutions and Sustainability Domain, or the USS Domain, was formed last year under our national Research, Innovation and Enterprise plan. We call this RIE 2020. So at the national level, we have a research plan. We have invested more in research, and within that overall research plan, we have a domain that is specific to urban solutions and sustainability. 

 

$900 million has been set aside for this USS domain, and it cuts across different vertical domains like energy, water and land. The idea is to promote stronger multi-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder collaboration and research, because we believe that many good ideas can come from the nexus across these different vertical domains, be it energy, water, or land.  And we want to create more of such inter-disciplinary research to create more innovative and impactful urban solutions.   

 

This morning, I am pleased to announce that the government will set aside $150 million from the USS domain to implement a new Cities of Tomorrow Programme.

 

The Cities of Tomorrow Programme will prioritise and focus our R&D efforts on critical areas of national concern, so that we can achieve our vision of a highly liveable and people-centric city with a sustainable urban ecosystem.

 

In particular, we will focus on three key R&D areas under this programme. I will elaborate on each of these in turn.

 

First, there’s the area of Advanced Construction and Resilient Infrastructure. We need to enhance our construction productivity and ensure that we have a city with a reliable infrastructure that is well maintained. So the first area within this priority is to change the way we build. We must have a more highly productive, integrated and technologically advanced construction sector that can build faster, that can build with fewer manpower resources. This can include making use of robots, or automated equipment to increase site productivity, or advanced construction materials with enhanced performance.

 

Besides changing the way we build and finding new ways to build better, we also need to ensure that our existing infrastructure is well-maintained. Decades ago, as we started out as a new city, all of our infrastructure was very new. Maintenance was not so much of an issue. Singapore is now more than 50 years old. We are still very young by international standards, but we are coming to a stage of development where our infrastructure is ageing. So we need to ensure that this ageing infrastructure remains well-maintained and effective throughout their lifespan. And the use of new technologies in condition monitoring for effective maintenance can help us do much more in this respect as well.

 

 One example is the research that HDB is looking at to exploit smart solutions for a more predictive and proactive approach for the maintenance of HDB towns and estates. By leveraging on sensors, the Internet of Things and Big Data, they are looking at ways to help ensure that critical systems in our HDB estates function reliably. The study will allow us to develop a whole new range of capabilities to sense, monitor, optimise, automate, and manage various urban systems within our HDB estates, taking into consideration residents' behaviour – how they use certain things, how they interact with one another, as well as localised weather exposures. So we will be able to ascertain which parts of the buildings need more careful monitoring, and how we can keep our buildings well maintained as well. 

 

I am glad that HDB will be signing an MOU with Imperial College London and A*STAR at the Congress for this particular project.

 

So that is our first priority area – Advanced Construction and Resilient Infrastructure. The second priority is to create New Spaces because in Singapore, as all of you know, we are land-constrained. So our one priority here is to create new spaces to ensure there is sufficient capacity to support our future long-term development.  

 

We are looking at new ways to create more usable underground, as well as sea spaces. And we would like to see how we can reduce the cost of these underground and sea space development, and also expand while minimising environmental impact.

 

For underground space, our priority is to move functions such as utilities, warehousing and storage facilities underground. We are not intending to build an entire HDB town underground – maybe that is for another future Congress, many decades from now. But for now, our priority is to move functions such as utilities, warehousing and storage, things that we believe can be moved underground so that we can free up surface land for living and community activities. 

 

Even to do that, we will need research to find ways in which such underground uses can be done in a more cost-effective manner, and in a safe manner as well. So again, we have research focusing on these areas. For example, in the area of underground caverns, Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) are now working on a project to develop safer, more robust, and more cost-effective design standards for our underground developments. 

 

Our third area is in building a more Sustainable City to provide a high-quality and sustainable living environment for all Singaporeans. And here, within this broad umbrella of a sustainable city, there are many interesting and exciting research possibilities that we can explore.  For example, how can we enhance Singapore as a green city? How can we create a more comfortable living environment and help residents integrate and interact more closely with greenery and nature? How can we be more resource and energy-efficient in Singapore? How can we achieve our aim of becoming a more car-lite society? These are all interesting research questions that we are asking, and we would like to explore new solutions. 

 

In the area of HDB towns, for example, we are looking at new ways in which we can plan for more comfortable and liveable towns, and even ways to keep our environment cooler and quieter. And if you go around the booths later, as I did just now, you will see some interesting research already being done in this area. One research project is looking at ways to mitigate noise within our HDB flats, and they are looking at active cancellation of noise. Like headphones that provide active cancellation when you are on the plane, they are looking at active cancellation on the windows, in order to reduce the noise in the HDB flat. So that is one research idea being worked on by A*STAR, and there are many other possibilities that will allow us to create a more comfortable living environment in our HDB towns. 

 

We are also exploring new materials and technologies that can make our buildings more water and energy efficient. For example, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) is working with the National University of Singapore (NUS) on nanocomposite films that can convert heat to energy for more effective indoor cooling in the tropics, while improving air quality. So this area of Sustainable City provides a broad umbrella for which many interesting and exciting research can be done as well, to make Singapore a more liveable, a more inclusive, and a more sustainable city. 

 

Ultimately, the research undertaken through the Cities of Tomorrow Programme will enable us to deal with the increasing complexities of running a city state, which require greater coordination and better integration of research efforts to reap synergies across different disciplines holistically. We are looking for research that harness the strengths of science and technology, so that we can respond in a more intelligent and efficient manner. We are also looking for research that can be translated from the lab to real world deployment, because that is what we are interested in. Upstream research is important, but we want to see that translation to real world deployment so as to reap tangible social and economic benefits. 

 

To succeed in this endeavour, we will need the collaborative partnership of the whole community. While the government can put in place a framework, which we are doing, we will also put in place support systems such as funding schemes, and different ways in which we can help our researchers. But ultimately it is the efforts by researchers and industry, which is important in order to deliver the entire pipeline of research and innovation.

 

Through the Congress today, more details on the Cities of Tomorrow Programme and its implementation will be shared at various R&D Directions sessions in the afternoon. I would encourage participants to make good use of these opportunities to find out what the different government agencies are doing, how you can fit into their work, how your research areas can support the programme that we are interested in, and how we can all work together to achieve this Cities of Tomorrow vision.

 

 

Even as we look for new opportunities, it is also important to recognise and celebrate contributions to Singapore’s urban sustainability efforts that we are already achieving today. This morning, we are also recognising the winning teams of the 2017 Minister for National Development’s R&D Awards, and they come from URA, HDB, LTA and JTC, as well as their various research partners. These winning projects showcase the commitment of the research community to improving modelling for national and town planning, urban greenery, mitigating construction noise, and facilities management - all different areas which impact our lives, all of which, with research efforts, can contribute to significant improvements. 

 

In conclusion, Singapore has come a long way since our independence. We  can all see the dramatic transformation that we have experienced over the last 50 years, but there is still a lot more that we can achieve together, and research and innovation will play a critical role in this next phase of our journey. Our pioneer generation laid a strong foundation for us, and we should build upon it and ensure we have a better Singapore 50 years from now. With the application of science and technology, with research and innovation, we can create a Green City and Best Home for ourselves and for our future generations.

 

On that note, thank you, and enjoy yourselves at the Congress.