Consolidating progress to be part of next phase of development for CREATE

Singapore President Tony Tan Keng Yam has said the Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) will be consolidating its progress before adding on more research labs. 

He made the remark on a visit to the international research campus today, where he toured two laboratories - Singapore-ETH Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability - Future Cities Lab and the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre's Environmental Sensing and Modeling Lab.

Dr Tan mooted the idea for CREATE in 2006 when he was Chairman of the National Research Foundation or NRF. 

Earlier in March this year, the campus opened its doors to welcome its first research centre, Centre for Global Environmental Sustainability - a Singapore-Swiss collaboration which addresses the challenges of sustainable development.

The S$360 million campus, which is co-located at the University Town in the National University of Singapore, currently houses 15 research groups from 10 universities. 

Dr Tan estimated the research campus may take five to 10 years to consolidate, and the time will allow the groups there to shore up funding to sustain themselves and improve their research. 

He also suggested that CREATE strengthen links with local universities, such as the National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University, to enrich the universities' culture and provide more research opportunities for Singaporeans.

He highlighted that research and development is a long-term effort. 

"Once we are confident that CREATE has evolved into a sustainable enterprise, which I don't believe that we can be sure for another ten years, and the groups carry on and work well). Possibly something the government, or the NRF might like to look at, or the CREATE management, is to augment these ten universities with possibly one or two additions. But not from universities, from either national laboratories overseas or industrial laboratories overseas. And I think that this will add to the attraction of CREATE."