http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7325/full/468731a.html
- Nature
- 468,
- 731
- doi:10.1038/468731a
- Published online
Uncertainty has replaced confidence as
economic reality bites science in the city-state and scientists find
that their research funds now come with strings attached.
Subject terms:
When Neal Copeland and Nancy Jenkins, a renowned
husband-and-wife team of cancer geneticists, left the US National Cancer
Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, for the Institute of Molecular and
Cell Biology in Singapore in 2006, they joined a string of star names in
the city-state that suggested its remarkable investment in research was
paying off. Generous funds have flowed to science in Singapore for the
best part of a decade, and researchers from around the world have
followed. Drawn by hefty salaries and enviable working conditions, they
have rapidly given Singapore an international presence. The Genome
Institute of Singapore, for example, has asserted itself as one of the
most important basic genomics research organizations in the world.
Best of all for scientists, despite Singapore's reputation for top-down autocracy, its investment in research came with relatively few strings attached. The administration realized that researchers prefer to have the freedom to follow their curiosity and that, to attract the best minds, they needed to loosen the reins. As a result, Singapore's biomedical infrastructure seems set to enter the next stage in its development, in which researchers looking for their next posts — especially the much-sought promising young researchers and postdoctoral students — are starting to consider Singapore, not only because of the large grants, but also because of its scientific reputation and intellectual ferment.
To many outsiders, the Singapore experiment seemed too good to be
true — and perhaps it was. Singapore is not immune to the economic
pressure mounting on research communities around the world, and
policy-makers everywhere want returns on their investments. Rumours of
purse-tightening measures have grown over the past year, but researchers
in the city-state were still stunned by the news in September that
almost one-third of the total research budget will be abruptly shifted
to competitive 'industrial alignment funds'. Access to that funding will
now depend on researchers' abilities to show that their work has
industrial applications. The policy will affect all research but is
aimed particularly at the biomedical sciences, which are senior figures
feel are not pulling their weight.
Nobody should cry for Singapore's scientists, who don't expect sympathy. They have been living large and will continue, if they can prove themselves, to be paid generously. And having to write grant applications is not enslavement — it is the norm for most researchers around the world. The problem is not Singapore's shifting priorities, but how the government is implementing the change.
In response to a call for research proposals last month, Singapore's scientists have had to scramble to draft application-oriented proposals. They know that industrial contracts would help. But, given the shaky state of the global pharmaceutical industry, such contracts are not easy to come by. Many applications are going in with a weak note: “industrial partner to be decided”. Singapore's scientists worry that, given only weeks or months to secure deals, they will be forced into unfavourable agreements. One researcher at Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research says that the policy is an attempt to turn the agency “into a contract-research organization overnight”.
Researchers also worry that the government has not made clear how it will review the sudden influx of research applications. Singapore has used external review committees to audit its institutes in the past. But reviewing individual grants is a different and much more labour-intensive procedure if done properly. Will Singapore be forced to rely on a small number of bureaucrats and selected scientists for reviews? Frustrated by the changes, Copeland and Jenkins have decided to leave Singapore. Many other scientists there are also looking for new posts.
The government should move quickly to clarify the grant-review process. Easing the industrial-application restrictions would help scientists in the short term. More fundamentally, as researchers have suggested, the government could phase in the funding changes over the next few years, rather than introducing them all at once.
Singapore's rapid transformation came about through massive, perhaps even excessive, funding. The move to align scientific objectives with economic reality is understandable. But it would be a huge waste if doing so with undue haste and insufficient planning were to destroy Singapore's impressive experiment.
Best of all for scientists, despite Singapore's reputation for top-down autocracy, its investment in research came with relatively few strings attached. The administration realized that researchers prefer to have the freedom to follow their curiosity and that, to attract the best minds, they needed to loosen the reins. As a result, Singapore's biomedical infrastructure seems set to enter the next stage in its development, in which researchers looking for their next posts — especially the much-sought promising young researchers and postdoctoral students — are starting to consider Singapore, not only because of the large grants, but also because of its scientific reputation and intellectual ferment.
“To many outsiders, the Singapore experiment seemed too good to be true — and perhaps it was.”
Nobody should cry for Singapore's scientists, who don't expect sympathy. They have been living large and will continue, if they can prove themselves, to be paid generously. And having to write grant applications is not enslavement — it is the norm for most researchers around the world. The problem is not Singapore's shifting priorities, but how the government is implementing the change.
In response to a call for research proposals last month, Singapore's scientists have had to scramble to draft application-oriented proposals. They know that industrial contracts would help. But, given the shaky state of the global pharmaceutical industry, such contracts are not easy to come by. Many applications are going in with a weak note: “industrial partner to be decided”. Singapore's scientists worry that, given only weeks or months to secure deals, they will be forced into unfavourable agreements. One researcher at Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research says that the policy is an attempt to turn the agency “into a contract-research organization overnight”.
Researchers also worry that the government has not made clear how it will review the sudden influx of research applications. Singapore has used external review committees to audit its institutes in the past. But reviewing individual grants is a different and much more labour-intensive procedure if done properly. Will Singapore be forced to rely on a small number of bureaucrats and selected scientists for reviews? Frustrated by the changes, Copeland and Jenkins have decided to leave Singapore. Many other scientists there are also looking for new posts.
The government should move quickly to clarify the grant-review process. Easing the industrial-application restrictions would help scientists in the short term. More fundamentally, as researchers have suggested, the government could phase in the funding changes over the next few years, rather than introducing them all at once.
Singapore's rapid transformation came about through massive, perhaps even excessive, funding. The move to align scientific objectives with economic reality is understandable. But it would be a huge waste if doing so with undue haste and insufficient planning were to destroy Singapore's impressive experiment.
Knowledge discovery NOT = product/application development NOT = adoption NOT = successful deployment NOT = social impact/progress
The argument for basic science is that it's generally difficult to direct knowledge discovery to those with actual impact in the long run. If Singapore is shifting the $$$ down one stage, then they might as well spend it on the other stages also, or end up with lots of applied research results +/- proof-of-concept showcases sitting on shelves. Good ideas don't sell itself, but neither do potentially good applications.
Government should seriously consider the Editorial suggestion of
'' phasing in the funding changes, over the next few years, rather than introducing them all at once.'' As rightly pointed out by the
Editorial, '' while the move to realign scientific objectives with economic reality is understandable, it would be a huge waste if doing so with undue haste and insufficient planning were to
destroy Singapore's impressive experiment", the city – state government should very seriously consider these words of wisdom. Singapore should be an example to other countries
and retain its scientific community in their own city – state at all costs.
Coupled with local labour laws heavily tilted in favour of the employer, so that even a tenured professor can be fired at a short notice without much pretext, and the constant itch of bureaucrats to micromanage most everything (e.g. few months into your grant you can easily get an order to cut spending on a specific line of important items, for no given reason), in it's only fair that the pay is good.
When the massive biomedical funding came in a decade ago especially for basic research, many in the community were skeptical how long this would last (the motivation for eventual economic returns was very clear to everyone from the very beginning). The heavy funding for basic research is actually strengthened with the National Research Foundation and Education Ministry funding support for the coming years; it is understandable that A*STAR is clarifying its goal of translational research (A*STAR is part of Trade and Industry Ministry). In the local biomedical community, very few people would have the illusion that Singapore will continue to devote most funds to support blue sky type of basic research.
The biggest psychological impact of the recent realignment to local biomedical researchers probably is the end of extramural grants from biomedical research council (BMRC). Even though this was remedied with the increase in extramural funding from other funding agencies, many individual PI felt the psychological shock because BMRC has already built the reputation as a large funding source supporting individual PI driven research. The overall landscape for research funding in Singapore is still way better than most other developed countries.
Over the past decade when I talked to business people, many were surprised about the scale of the Singapore experiment for so much basic research. For these people and the commoners at large, the recent realignment is not too drastic or sudden. Some even told me that these are long overdue. Singapore has been pushing for translational biomedical research especially for the past 5 years mainly from science to medicine but translation is also important from science to industry via biomedical technology innovations. Basic biomedical researchers in many countries sometimes look down on translational research; claiming that these have no science, little innovations and low impact or too technical. Interestingly, many technology journals' impact factors (IF) have skyrocketed over the past few years (just look at the Nature series on technologies; and the dwindling IF on many pure biology journals). A recent discussion with some publishers suggests that many basic researchers turned away from pure biology research partially because of the nick-picking behaviors of many reviewers in these fields. Many groups spent bulk of resources revising papers to satisfy tiny concerns (end up as many figures in supplementary information) of reviewers to get into these journals (some even with mediocre IF). The rate of diminishing returns in perfecting a figure or two have driven many researchers into technology areas where the reviewers are still fair and reasonably rigorous (just like the basic research publishing 20 or 30 years ago). As more basic researchers migrate into translational research worldwide, the scientific rigor has improved. Biomedical people start realizing that there are also scientific principles to be discovered and significant innovations in even the so called technical areas. Studying or developing an engineered system can be as valid scientifically as those focusing on the natural or pathological systems. Moving a basic science discovery into something useful for industry or healthcare requires more than just a technician's contribution or pairs of hands. If Singapore as a city-state's primary motivation for research is to build up competitiveness for a knowledge economy, then the current realignment to really focus on translational research is timely. Being a culturally and geographically located interface between the east and west, Singapore can source for bulk of the basic research discoveries elsewhere and translate them in Singapore into useful technologies for the society or the world. The strong and efficient team-based working style and a large technical/engineering community is ideally suitable for translational research that often require integrative cross-disciplinary efforts and collaborations. Basic research still has values in Singapore for many obvious reasons in education, in maintaining scientific reputation as a credible place for R&D etc. As Singapore builds a reputation as a translational research hub, some values of the basic research will be substituted over time by high quality translational research; and it will be great if Singapore maintains a smaller but higher quality basic researchers community mostly in academia while national research institutions or industry R&D centers focus on translational research that yield more direct impact to society.
B.t.w. fish con: thanks for the insightful official Singapore view about the pityful state of sciences and publication system as a whole ... lol
The fact is, Singapore is always fast in implementing changes in its research goal since I joined IMRE in 1998. The country is a population with 1/5 of the Netherlands, 1/15 of UK, and 1/20 of Germany, not to mention with the size of the country. I guess it is better for them not good to stay at the same position for 20 years in order to survive the competitiveness from other emerging and rising countries. Sound very official right? LOL.
"This significance of the proposed research is not strong because the proposal is diffuse and highly ambitious. The PI should focus more tightly on key components of the prior proposal that are viewed as strongest and best integrated.
Each of the aims and themes of this diffuse proposal could be a proposal in itself. The PI is urged to focus more on one of these aims and flesh out the mechanistic and translational strengths therein."
While this may be true, there doesn't seem to be much evidence that whoever wrote this read and understood the proposal
Do you apply for MOE grants in IMRE (strangely I can't seem to find someone with your initials on the IMRE website)? Also I don't understand the point you are trying to make when you divide the populations of various countries by the population of Singapore. How does this justify sketchy research funding allocation policy?