Speech by Minister Lawrence Wong at the Launch of the SJ-NTU Corporate Laboratory

Jul 31, 2018

I am very happy to join you this afternoon at the launch of the Surbana Jurong-NTU (SJ-NTU) Corporate Laboratory. 

Research & Development (R&D), as all of you know, is integral to Singapore’s economic strategy. It is the key to sustained and quality economic growth, and that is crucial in maintaining our economic competitiveness, especially against larger and better-resourced countries. But it is not just crucial at the country level. It is also crucial at the personal level, in opening up new opportunities and creating good jobs for Singaporeans. 

That is why the government’s policy has been to maintain steady long-term investments in R&D. That is important because R&D is a long and uncertain process, and we must invest consistently to get the results we want. We started this journey more than 10 years ago. We set up the National Research Foundation (NRF) in 2006, and we have been building up our R&D budget year by year, even through the years of economic downturn. 

The R&D budget for this present five-year plan, from 2016 to 2020, is $19 billion. It is 18% more than the previous budget in the last five year cycle. So we are investing more, and we are spreading out the R&D investments across different domains – in advanced manufacturing, in biomedical sciences, in the digital economy, and in urban solutions. 

We are also spreading the R&D investments across different types of research. Some of it is in basic science, to push the boundaries of scientific discoveries. But there is also a good mix of applied research – applied industry-relevant research that will help our companies strengthen their competitive edge. Through it all, we want to build up the capability to translate basic research into practical and viable applications that are relevant to the industry, and to our economic needs.

To achieve all this, the private sector must do its part, and play a more active role in shaping our national R&D efforts. This is why we want more companies to invest in R&D. In Singapore, everyone wants the government to do more – to spend more and to invest more in their respective domains. When the government spends more, you cannot always predict what the private sector response will be. Sometimes the government spends more, but there will be the inadvertent consequence where the private sector decides to become more passive, and scale back. Because why should the private sector do more if the government is spending more. If this were to happen in R&D it would be a very bad outcome, because we do not want our national R&D efforts to be shaped solely by the government alone. It really needs industry inputs and ownership. 

Government spending in R&D should catalyse, not crowd out but ‘crowd in’, more private investments in R&D. That is why NRF has been supporting more corporate laboratories to be set up through collaborations between industry and academic institutions here in Singapore. This is the 12th laboratory supported by the NRF, the 6th in NTU, but it is significant because it is the first of its kind for the built environment sector.  

This is a very timely move because there is tremendous potential to transform our built environment through new technologies. The trend of digitisation, artificial intelligence (AI), big data, the Internet of Things (IoT) for example, will enable new ways of urban planning and construction. It will make the process more efficient and productive, it will reduce potential abortive work, allow us to build faster, and also facilitate greater collaboration between different industry stakeholders.  

Technology will also enable us to push for more sustainable solutions. With the reality of climate change and global warming, it is essential for us to do our part to have greener buildings, cleaner energy sources, and more energy efficient infrastructure. Even as we do all this, we have to prepare for the reality that despite our best efforts and despite the world’s best efforts, global warming will happen. And when global warming happens, there is a very real likelihood of rising sea levels, which means that Singapore is very vulnerable. So we also have to find ways to protect our shores and make our city more resilient.

Technology will also help us in tackling our constraints of land. Land is always a constraint in Singapore, we are continuing to look for more innovative solutions to expand and optimise land use. We are already trying our best to optimise every inch of surface land in Singapore. In the Ministry of National Development (MND), our next frontier is underground space, to better optimise our underground spaces, and to look at ways in which these can be utilised for utilities, substations, or even storage. So there are many things that we can explore, and make use of R&D and new technologies to further optimise our land use.

In short, we must take full advantage of the technologies to build Singapore. Why should we do this? First, we only have this little island – it is our nation, it is our city and it is our home. So it is in all of our best interests to make this the best possible home for ourselves, and our children. And that means that we should never be satisfied with the status quo, or with doing something that is just good enough. That cannot be possible. In fact, if you think about how far we have come in building Singapore, we’ve just crossed our SG50 milestone a few years ago, and we are now embarking on a grand project to plan for the next 50 years or SG100 in 2065. It will be a major undertaking to reimagine and rebuild Singapore, and Singapore version two must be greener and smarter, more beautiful, more inclusive, and more resilient than the one we currently have. So we need to harness technologies well to achieve all of these outcomes, and build a future Singapore where the human spirit will thrive and flourish. That is the first reason why we are doing all this.
   
There is a second reason why we should be at the leading edge of urban solutions.  That is simply because there are huge demands for infrastructure all over the world, and especially in this part of the world, in Asia, which is the fastest growing region in the world. Singapore is already a financing centre for many infrastructure projects in the region. Most of the deals are financed through Singapore. Beyond financing, we can offer many other services – engineering, consultancy, project management, dispute resolution – all of the different elements that are critical in bringing infrastructure projects to bear. We have competitive strengths in these areas, and it is timely to build up capabilities in the urban solutions space to make this an exportable growth sector in its own right, to serve the growing regional demand, and become an infrastructure hub for Asia. 

I am very glad this afternoon, that we have two important partners that are coming together to build this new corporate laboratory. Surbana Jurong is our largest home-grown consultancy for urban and infrastructure. The consultancy space, as they may tell you, is highly competitive. There are big global giants operating in this space – companies like AECOM and Arup. We are an open economy and we welcome international companies to operate from Singapore, but we also want to anchor and grow Singaporean capabilities. 

That is why we are very happy that a home-grown company like Surbana Jurong is doing well; it is thriving with projects in the region, and now has a growing regional presence.  On top of that, it is investing in research to become an innovation- and technology-driven consultancy in urban, industrial and infrastructure domains. As you heard just now, Surbana Jurong is investing around $30 million in an Innovation Program Office to drive innovation activities, including road-mapping, partnership formation, and technology commercialisation. These are very good outcomes and a good example of how government investment is crowding in more private sector investments. So we hope more companies will follow Surbana Jurong’s lead. 

The other partner we have is NTU, an academic institution with a very strong track record in engineering and sustainability research. NTU itself is a pioneer for green and innovative construction technologies. It holds the national record for Green Mark buildings in Singapore, and long may that record continue! NTU’s own campus is a living laboratory for innovative methods to be tested out, for example, the use of Mass Engineered Timber and the Pre-fabricated Pre-finished Volumetric Construction (PPVC) methods. We are very happy that these two entities have now come together to form this corporate laboratory. 

NRF has been involved in trying to get partnerships formed for corporate laboratories. It is a bit like matchmaking work – you do not always know if there will be instant chemistry, but in this case, I think it is a match made in heaven because you have two parties which are established in their own domains and fields, and they are coming together to work together, and it is a great example of how such partnerships can truly transform the industry.

Besides this corporate laboratory, MND has been looking at other ways to further harness new technologies for the built environment sector. We know that the start-up scene in Singapore for example. is starting to become more exciting, and we now have a more vibrant eco-system of incubators and accelerators, as well as start-ups coming up in Singapore. But a lot of the interest so far, is in areas like FinTech, IT, and there has not been so much focus on the built environment. So BCA is developing an accelerator programme for start-ups and companies in the built environment sector. The intent is to bring in innovative built environment solutions, from both local and overseas companies, to the market.  We will do so through a range of activities which includes matching to industry hosts, access to investor funding and business network, and the provision of mentoring and mentorship opportunities to companies. 

HDB will also lead the way for innovative ideas in its public housing programme. HDB has an initiative called “Cool Ideas for Better HDB living”. This was an initiative launched in 2011 where we invite Singaporeans to co-create solutions to enhance the HDB living environment. Since then, we have received more than 800 ideas from individuals. We intend to expand this initiative to include submissions from companies, from enterprises, so that there will be more substantial solutions that can be implemented. We welcome our enterprises to come forward with their innovations and work collaboratively with HDB to develop them into practical solutions for our housing estates. 

HDB will provide opportunities for test-bedding and pilot implementation of good and workable solutions. These efforts will not only bring good solutions to benefit Singaporeans and HDB residents, but also allow our enterprises to showcase their innovations in our HDB estates, and eventually export these solutions overseas. 

So you can see that work is happening on various fronts to enable innovative building technologies that will transform the way we design, imagine and build our future city, and also develop our urban solutions industry as a growth sector in its own right. Government is systematically mapping out the various things we can do; but this has to be a whole of Singapore effort, and I encourage all of you to come forward and share any ideas and solutions that you may have. 

Finally, once again I congratulate Surbana Jurong and NTU on this new joint research partnership. I am confident that the collaboration will yield positive outcomes, and spur further investment in R&D by other industry players. This is the beginning, the start of an exciting journey, and I look forward to many more fruitful collaborations in building a better Singapore together.

Thank you very much.