Yeah, but how many Singaporeans are willing to go through the years of school required to do research - 3 years for a Bachelor's degree, followed by 3+ years for a PhD, followed by a couple years of a post doc. Seriously, how many Singaporeans would be willing to go through almost 10 years of school after A-levels just to get started in research? And that's just for a PhD. Count on adding 2-3 years extra if you need a MD-PhD.

Until this happens, Singapore will have to rely on 'foreign talent'. In general, Singaporeans take a pragmatic approach to school and life, delayed gratification is a foreign concept given the cost of living here. Maybe instead of pouring every dime into research, provide a stipend to those who are willing to go through 10 years of school.

Cool. I wonder when someone will call them "quitters".

Contrast the posted report to the "official" A*STAR press release. The amount of spin by Janet Low's team can power all the windmills in Holland.

http://www.a-star.edu.sg/astar/about/action/pressrelease_details.do?id=0ec1aa4990A8

Eminent stem cell scientist at A*STAR to take up additional appointment at King's College London
10, Dec 2007

Dr Colman will build bridges between Singapore and UK stem cell research communities

Head of A*STAR's Singapore Stem Cell Consortium, Dr Alan Colman, has been appointed Chair of Regenerative Medicine and Director of the Stem Cell Centre at King's College London from May 2008. Dr Colman, a noted stem cell scientist, will continue with his current appointments at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Biopolis, Singapore. Both King's College and A*STAR have agreed to this arrangement to enable Dr Colman to contribute to the UK while remained engaged with Singapore.

As Executive Director of the Singapore Stem Cell Consortium, Dr Colman leads Singapore's main coordinating body for stem cell research to fund collaborative extramural research, support the development of key infrastructure such as the Stem Cell Bank, and bring basic and clinical stem cell research communities together. Dr Colman is also a Principal Investigator at A*STAR's Institute of Medical Biology where he leads a research team studying stem cell biology and development of stem cell therapies.

Mr Lim Chuan Poh, A*STAR Chairman, commented: "A*STAR appreciates that Alan wants to remain engaged with Singapore. With the concurrent appointments at both King's College and A*STAR, Alan will be able to further contribute to the already excellent research partnership that we have with the UK."

Dr Colman, who has been pursuing stem cell research in Singapore since 2002, sees opportunities for building bridges and exploring the potential synergy between King's College London and A*STAR Singapore.

"Singapore and the United Kingdom's position on stem cell research are largely aligned, paving the way for laboratories in the two countries to collaborate. Both have programmes and expertise in complementary stem cell related areas that could potentially be coupled to further advance our understanding of genetic disorders and other medical conditions. In addition, both organizations have previously stated their ambition to use stem cells to generate and test new human medicines. This new appointment and the link it creates are likely to expedite this process," said Dr Colman.

Dr Colman is part of the internationally diverse scientific community at Biopolis. He has been actively connecting Singapore to the global stem cell research community and fostering linkages between the UK and Singapore through the UK-Singapore Partners in Science Initiative launched in 2004 by HRH Prince Andrew, The Duke of York.

For media enquires, please contact:
Janet Low
Assistant Head, Corporate Communications
Agency for Science, Technology and Research
DID: (65) 6826 6337
Email: janet_low@a-star.edu.sg

@ 1st anon..
you will be surprised regardless whichever govermental hole you crawl out from, there are singaporeans that are more than willing to delve into the research path as long as sufficient assistances provided and sufficient respect / opportunities given to them, instead of us worshipping the foreign talents and delegating our own phds to becoming testtubes washers

that what happens when u dun believe in your own ppl,
and get them set up on a backward path in career through 2years of service + liability,
when our foreigner COMPETITORS are advancing into their degrees and
getting our jobs here cause they dun have reservist call ups, recieving education over our ppl and using us as a stepping stone to the US and Europe.

Wakeup and start investing in Singapore, not making us slaves and tools to others.

Nothing new nor surprising. The following was posted more than four years ago in the Singapore Review.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sg_Review/message/954

Greetings,

Since we’re talking of the Biopolis, I’d like to vent about the waste of money into the biotech industry.

Millions of dollars down the drain, six years of investment and NOTHING, abso-fucking-lutely nothing to show for it. Ever wondered why the newspapers have suddenly gone silent about Biotech? Current figures indicate that they are somewhere behind refrigerator slime as far as contributors to the economy are
concerned.

Soon there are going to be HUNDREDS of “Life Science” graduates from NUS and NTU (their intakes for these courses have trebled). Assuming they all work at the biopolis, sooner or later, like the *.com bubble, most of these labs will close, either due to financial dues (when the gub’mint stops funding this), or due to the fact that there would be over 30 labs doing the same shit, who is going to employ them?

Secondly, imagine you work your ass off for a degree in LS, and what do you work as? Lab assistant, which is a glorified janitor job, and for that there will be all these poly grads willing to do it at lower pay..

Philip Yeo, what the hell were you drinking when you came up with this shit? The US and Europe, even China, India, Thailand and other countries have gone leaps and bounds ahead of Singapore in biotech research. Singapore tried to tap into the biomed market and so far there hasn’t even emerged a cure for a headache, after all these millions of dollars, and the foreign talent (which incidentally was recruited to “short circuit the LONG time taken for biotech research to mature). I talked to some people who were giving seminars at the various JC’s on biotech, and they all tell me, uninanimously, that the government is wasting HUGE amounts of money on this. They even say things like “I am here because your government pays me a fortune.”

And for this, PY set up ASTAR… Sad… And I haven’t even started on the way they totally screwed the NUS curriculum in Biology. I mean it was once a department that was all rounded, focussing on ecology, evolutionary biology, biodiversity (Singapore was strategically placed to be the best biodiversity centre in the world. We are in the midst of the richest ecosystems anywhere in the world), and now it is all focussed towards biotechnology and “Life sciences” (The worst misnomer if I ever saw one).

Regards
Hades

i'd like to inform the 1st anonymous person that there are a lot of Singaporeans who are interested enough in research to do their PhD. in fact, having worked here and overseas in the research line for the past 10 years, i can confidently say that we are actually producing enough PhDs.

but the problem (as highlighted) is that we don't groom our own people, astar have this mentality that angmo dicks are bigger and better, therefore our own people are sidelined. i have met so many disillusioned post-docs in sg (Singaporean) and the students that i've met have told me they are worried about going back to sg because they know they can never climb up because they are considered small fry. this is what astar is like and having worked there and knowing the culture, i totally agree with my boss that the people that run it are idiots, why? because they don't see that grooming our own people is so much more important than getting results fast. without our own people doing breakthrough research, how will sg ever climb the international science ladder? the research work done follows the researcher, so if (e.g.) david lane discovered something important, when he leaves sg, do you think the people in the world (let alone the scientific community) will remember that sg workers (or test-tube washers our "amazing" philip yeo stated) are the ones that did the work. no, they will only remember that david lane led the research.

how did america or ever europe get their status as a hub for scientific research and discovery? it is because they have local scientist, who through the years made amazing discovers and in time people saw america or europe as the hotbed for discoveries.

our ppl (gahmen and their astar counterparts alike) think research work is like making instant coffee, that becoming a scientific hub just requires the importing of well known scientists. no need to groom our own ppl, no need for our own ppl to make important scientific discovers. just need to throw money at it and it will became what they want, reality be damned.

thank goodness i'm out of sg and now am about to run my own research (have my own group) even though i don't have a PhD. at least here, the experience and talent is more important than a stupid piece of paper. if i'm back in sg, i'll still be washing test-tubes. and astar wonders why they can't keep locals and why locals don't want to return to work for them.

Many must have thought that Jor-El was a fool till the end
-
`they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark`

dun worry....we'll just wave more $ for the next FTs to take the offer and treat us like suckers

I don't think that you can have "private competition". The logic here is convoluted: on one hand you complain about research in Singapore not being good enough because the approach is too "pragmatic" and at the same time you want to invite money grabbing corporations onto our turf.

Research is something that needs big money to fund which is why governments always have to make the big step. I don't approve of the way they are just going after big names, instead of trying to spot talent, and trying to nurture the next big thing. But then again if you don't make it attractive you will not nurture the research culture so whenever you start something up there is a chicken and egg problem.

As for ethical problems you know the way that Singapore is: it is not that ethical questions are not raised or brought up in Singapore but rather that they are only discussed behind closed doors by the elite.

I agree that having corporations funding our life sciences program contradicts my initial complaint that research in Singapore's universities (or at least in NUS) is too "pragmatic" and less "knowledge for knowledge sake". But the fact of the matter is that it is very difficult to get the government to nurture a pure research culture in Singapore, because of political interests as well as the social baggage that emerges out of our particular education system.

So instead of the state monopolizing research, we might as well let private companies and investors come in to encourage growth in this area. Unlike pharmaceuticals, I think life sciences is a bit more conducive for medium-sized enterprises and not just large corporations...which might allow for more competition and hence innovation.

Hopefully, there will then be some positive consequences for our universities. The idea is that with a vibrant life-sciences economy that provides ample employment for graduates - particularly those with PhDs since this area requires significant expertise - there will be more incentives for innovation and research in our local universities in the long run. What do life sciences graduates in NUS currently look forward to....just a job at Astar? I know a few graduates with life sciences degrees...they've all gone into Astar and are not very happy with the structure and way things are done there. If they had more choice in employment and thus more research opportunities, I think that would give life sciences here more scope to grow.

In any case first you already have tie ups with private companies which is part of the plan to make Singapore into a bio research hub which you are probably not aware of. Then the issue is not whether you "allow" the private companies to conduct bio research here because that has always been the case. The issue is that you have to lure them here and beg them to stay.

Yah, i'm not very sure abt the biotech industry here. But if what you say is true, i.e. that the companies are not too keen on coming here or staying here, then it is quite worrying. I thought one of our so-called competitive advantages is that we can provide skilled but relatively cheap labour. Kinda like the gaming companies here (Lucasarts, EA) that hire local computer artists and programmers, but only for grunt work and not conceptualizing. I think in such cases, the companies might have a commitment/contract to help develop local talent (either by joint-ventures with schools like NTU or through in-house training) in return for the business advantages of setting up shop in Singapore. Of course, a fair amt of foreign labour will also be hired, but the idea is to develop the local talent and industry in the long run.

I agree with you that foreign capital will come and go, and in the end, the most our skilled programmers, artists, biotech specialists, etc can get out of them is the work experience. So if we want to have our own homegrown talent pool that are involved not just in "work" but also innovation, it will require some risktaking on our own part (and less reliance on the government) and a few brave Singaporeans to find some venture capital to start their own businesses.

Unfortunately, the local market is so small that any start-up will have to have the expertise to compete on at the very least a regional level. Take the graphic design industry for example. Singapore has a lot of talented graphic designers, but very few homegrown design houses. Most of my friends in the design industry are working for foreign creative arts directors or big international advertising firms. Competition is so stiff, so being good is not enough. You also need business savvy to market your expertise and vision beyond Singapore. This is already happening with the more inventory-based businesses (like trading, consumer products, etc), but less so with the innovation-driven industries like technology and creative arts.