DESIGNING A THROUGH-TRAIN PROGRAMME THAT INTEGRATES UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE EDUCATION

Singapore is fast-establishing itself as a Research and Development (R&D) powerhouse in Asia, with the government committing an increasing amount of its GDP on R&D. As Singapore moves towards a knowledge-based economy and intensifies its R&D activities, there is a great demand for highly trained Ph.D. scientists to sustain its growth in the coming years. With the current 1.5 Ph.D. researchers per 1,000-labor force, Singapore is still far behind that of other R&D intensive first-world countries such as Finland (3.6 per 1000) and Sweden (3.0 per 1000). The proposed Global Science Programme (GSP) aims to attract the top 5% of each freshman cohort enrolled in the Faculty of Science yearly and put this group of outstanding Science students through an innovative concurrent through-train Integrated Science undergraduate curriculum followed by a joint M.Sc./Ph.D. graduate programme with one of the top overseas universities. This specially designed concurrent through-train programme could lead to the award of two or three degrees – a B.Sc. (Honours) from the National University of Singapore (NUS), and a joint Masters and/or joint Ph.D. degree(s) from NUS and a top overseas partner University.
The GSP is an exclusive programme specially designed to attract the very best students to read Science at NUS. The students will be provided with a quality interdisciplinary education that incorporates an enhanced global learning experience to groom them to become outstanding scientists. GSP students will be given early exposure to research through the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Programme in Science (UROPS) within the Faculty. They will be offered the opportunities to spend up to two summer semesters at one of the overseas partner universities for their UROPS project during their undergraduate studies. These short but intensive stints of research allow students to hone research skills and to establish contacts for Joint Masters/PhDs with these laboratories paving the way for research-inclined students to pursue higher degrees in a seamless and integrated manner.