NTU-Imperial Education Fund Past Recipients

For further details of project outcomes, please contact the respective Principal Investigator(s).

 

1

Skill identification and job matching for engineering students
  
NTU PI: Dr S Supraja, Lecturer, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Co PI: Dr Kelvin Lee, Career & Attachment Office (formerly)
Imperial PI: Ms Fanny Mozu-Simpson, Senior Teaching Fellow, Department of Surgery & Cancer - Faculty of Medicine
Co PI: Dr Zohaib Akhtar, Senior Teaching Fellow, Electrical and Electronic Engineering

This project aims to map industry-relevant skills with programme curriculum and job prospects/market trends (internship and full-time opportunities) in an engineering school across both universities by creating a unified AI-driven platform with the same core framework but dynamically tailored which will facilitate a comparison between both institutions for cross-cultural relevance. Unlike generic AI tools, the backend model is fine-tuned specifically on career listing, graduate employment survey, and course catalogue datasets pertaining to NTU and similarly for Imperial, as well as incorporates the comprehensive skill frameworks adopted by the Singapore and UK governments, respectively. By integrating these diverse sources along with user inputs such as a student’s academic history, sector(s) of interest, soft skills and personal technical strengths, the final objective of the platform is to provide customised data-driven recommendations for a suitable career pathway and contextualised understanding of how a student’s academic interests align with evolving industry needs via interactive visualisations, thereby bridging the gap between education and employment.

The project outcome will enhance student experience by enabling learners to make informed, strategic choices about their studies and professional development based on the suggestions provided in the platform. This could include selection of appropriate modules, strengthening of specific competencies or identification of suitable internships based on skill gaps identified in their profiles. With student assistants acting as co-researchers in this project, they will not only develop the common platform but also assist in conducting structured literature reviews and foster cross-institutional learning via focus group discussions to evaluate the effectiveness based on participants’ feedback.

2

MindfulPitch: AI-Powered Communication and Mindfulness Tool for Business Students

NTU PI: Dr Ruchi Sinha, Nanyang Business School
Imperial PI: Prof Sankalp Chaturvedi, Department of Management and Entrepreneurship - Business School

MindfulPitch is a cross-institutional teaching innovation project between NTU and Imperial College London exploring how AI-supported tools can enhance communication learning, presentation confidence, and mindful self-regulation among business students. The project combines AI-assisted communication coaching with reflective mindfulness practices to support students in preparing pitches, presentations, and professional communication tasks. The collaboration involves joint pedagogical design, prototype development, classroom testing, and cross-institutional knowledge sharing between NTU and Imperial faculty. During the project, three prototype environments were explored, including a NALA-based communication coach, a Custom GPT communication assistant, and a conceptual mobile app prototype for future multimodal development.

The project’s revised focus is the deployment and evaluation of a scalable text-based AI communication coaching prototype within classroom settings. Expected outcomes include improved understanding of AI-supported communication learning, insights into student engagement and emotional regulation during presentation preparation, and the development of a pedagogical framework that can inform future educational innovation and larger-scale AI-enabled communication training initiatives across both institutions.

3 Project Title: How do business school students' digital reading behaviours and attention patterns affect their engagement with long-form academic texts? -- An investigation with students as research partners
 
NTU PI: Dr Kumaran Rajaram, Nanyang Business School
Imperial PI: Dr David Lefevre, Management & Entrepreneurship, Business School
 
This study investigates how business school students’ digital reading behaviours and attention patterns influence their engagement with long-form academic texts in asynchronous learning environments. As higher education increasingly adopts digital and self-directed learning approaches, students are often required to complete extended take-home learning tasks that demand sustained concentration and self-regulation. The study seeks to identify common distractions and challenges that may hinder effective learning during these prolonged tasks, including issues related to attention span, digital interruptions, and cognitive fatigue.

To ensure a meaningful and comparable learning experience, the learning activity is collaboratively co-designed by faculty from NTU and Imperial, with core pedagogical elements kept consistent across both institutions. This collaborative approach supports cross-institutional learning while maintaining academic rigor and shared learning outcomes.

The study also explores how modifications to asynchronous learning design can improve student engagement, focus, and overall learning effectiveness. Importantly, students are involved as active partners in reflecting on their learning processes, identifying barriers to effective engagement, and contributing ideas for improvement. Through this partnership approach, the project aims to empower students and faculty to co-create more effective, inclusive, and engaging asynchronous learning experiences.

4

Project Title: Students using learning analytics: Hackathon, apps and tracking

NTU PI: Dr Lim Fun Siong, Institute for Pedagogical Innovation, Research and Excellence
Imperial PI: Dr Camille Kandiko Howson, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

A common theme in the field of learning analytics has been to “give back” agency to students the use of their data. Both Imperial and NTU are considering how to enable ‘learning analytics by students for students’. We want to give back the control to students on how they would like dashboards to support them in learning. Both institutions have plans to organise hackathons in relation to this goal in the autumn of 2025. The purpose of this grant call is to provide a platform for student organisers from the two institutions to collaborate to brainstorm ideas on how best to organise hackathons, design common measure impact and learning outcomes as well as exchange experiences and share findings in joint conferences. At the same time, it provides a joint platform for student developers to exchange ideas across transnational borders.

We had the following outcomes:

  1. Student organisers get to present their reflections of what they had learned at the AI for Education Conference organised by NTU supported by Nvidia in Nov 2025
  2. Student participants surveyed (n = 26) reflected that they gained knowledge and skills in terms of AI and Big Data, Critical Thinking as well as Design and User Experience.
  3. Student winners further presented their reflections at the AI for Education Conference in Nov 2025 and the Joint Conference with Imperial on Dec 2025

We also had new ideas for learning analytics for students which is currently being planned for integration into NALA.


Project Title: Crossing Borders: Engaging with Research Papers in Statistics

NTU PI: Dr Fedor Duzhin, School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences (SPMS)
               Asst/Prof. Michele Nguyen, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (joint      
               appointment with SPMS)

Imperial PI: Dr Ioanna Papatsouma, Department of Mathematics
                    Dr Chris Hallsworth, Department of Mathematics

This project aims to expose undergraduate Maths students to research, by engaging them in a joint exploration of research papers in Statistics. Reading groups of students from both Imperial College London (ICL) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) will be assigned research papers authored by ICL and NTU faculty. 

The students will be actively involved in the project through weekly discussions with their peers and the project team, as well as discussions with the papers’ authors. The facilitated discussions and reflection sessions will promote interdisciplinary dialogue, cross-cultural exchange, and mutual learning among participating students. Student partners will also develop critical thinking skills, analytical abilities, and communication skills through engagement with research papers, collaborative discussion, and reflective analysis. 

The findings of this project will be used to incorporate research into existing Probability and Statistics modules at ICL and NTU, and on a long-term basis, design research-based modules. Future runs of this collaborative project may also be offered to students as part of the existing ecosystem of university holiday education activities.

1

Project Title: Unleashing the Power of Collaboration and Cutting-Edge Technologies: Building a Sustainable Future through Digital Analytics
(click here for project outcome)
 
NTU PI: Dr Liu Siyuan, School of Computer Science and Engineering
Imperial PI: Dr Esma Koca, Analytics, Marketing and Operations

The collaborative project between Imperial College Business School (ICBS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) aims to enhance global sustainability understanding by creating an interdisciplinary online module on “Analytics for Society”, focusing on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals. Talented groups of Business and Computer Science students from respective institutions will collaborate to develop diverse sessions specialising on how to use domain-specific digital analytics knowledge to achieve a sustainable development goal.

The project will enable students to actively participate in the learning process and engage with course content in an autonomous way to create interactive digital learning materials. By involving students in the co-creation process of these materials, the project has the potential to catalyse a transformation in teaching practices. The shift towards a more collaborative and student-centred approach allows us to further relinquish the traditional role of the sole knowledge provider and instead become facilitators of learning.

The resulting module will be publicly accessible, raising awareness and fostering a global understanding of sustainability challenges. The successful development of the collaborative module will open avenues for the creation of a joint program focused on Analytics for Society, fostering ongoing cross-institutional collaboration and knowledge exchange.

   
2

Project Title: Learning analytics and data literacy
(click here for project outcome)

NTU PI: Dr Lim Fun Siong, Applications of Teaching & Learning Analytics for Students (ATLAS)
Imperial PI: Dr Camille Kandiko Howson, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

This project is a partnership between Imperial College and NTU to develop learning analytics data literacy materials to support staff and students in understanding how to support student learning with data and learning analytics. This project is co-led by students and would focus on best practices and ethics for interpreting and using learning analytics to support student success.

Imperial College and NTU aim to share ideas relating best practices in learning analytics. With students from both institutions as co-collaborators, the team would get to explore how different organisations go about meeting legal requirements as well as pedagogical and ethical considerations in learning analytics. These efforts would culminate into two joint conferences and a suite of communication and education materials for NTU staff and student. We anticipate that these efforts would result in positive changes in how student data is used to improve teaching and learning at NTU.

   
3 Project Title: Online Course: Introduction to Tropical Peatlands and Wildfires
(click here for project outcome) 
 
NTU PI: Asst/Prof. Lee Ser Huay Janice Teresa, Asian School of the Environment, College of Science 
Imperial PI: Prof. Guillermo Rein, Faculty of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering (The HazeLab) 
 
This course frames the topic as a wicked problem and will be used to teach concepts on sustainability and climate change. The structure of the course consist of short 5-min videos from Imperial College and NTU. The Imperial Hazelab has conducted both field and laboratory studies on peat fires. NTU has conducted field studies on peatlands in Southeast Asia and will provide contextual understanding of tropical peatlands and fires. Funding from this grant is channelled towards resources needed to create online teaching content (e.g., booking of studios, technician manpower for creating and editing videos, transcription, illustration, translation) as well as paying student assistants to co-develop this course.
 
4

Project Title: Health and Sustainability
(click here for project outcome) 

NTU PI: Nurliyana Daros, Interdisciplinary Collaborative Core Office (ICC) 
Imperial PI: Dr Mark Pope, Centre for Languages, Culture and Communication 

The Health and Sustainability project, a collaboration between NTU-Imperial College London, aims to integrate humanity-centered design principles into the fields of health, education, and sustainability while fostering a livable ecosystem for future generations. It seeks to address real-world challenges through a process of interdisciplinary collaboration and design thinking.  

The project consists of four main components: the development of online resources for co-creative design and learning, incubator workshops facilitated by student co-learners and peer facilitators, sharing sessions with industry experts, and a design-a-thon where students from NTU and Imperial College London work in teams. 

The project aims to provide a sandbox for students to harness creative confidence as agents of change, and develop new insights related to health and sustainability in Singapore and the United Kingdom. At the core of navigating such complexities are transferable competencies that include critical thinking, creative confidence, design thinking, and self-directed learning.     

  
1

Project Title: Establishment of the Imperial-NTU Food Student Research Network Partnership
(click here for project outcome)

NTU PI: A/Prof Yusuf Ali, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
Imperial PI:  Dr Aaron M. Lett, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction
Imperial Co-PI: Dr Richard Bale, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

The emphasis of this seed-funded project is to: 1) Establish an NTU-FSRN (based on Imperial-FSRN model) i.e. SRN model transposition 2) Once established, a secondary focus will be on creating a digital mode-of-operation for partner events between Imperial-FSRN and NTU-FSRN through jointly hosting a hybrid-online conference as an initial test event. This could be via Teams or Zoom, for example.

The project will develop infrastructure and learning for future Imperial-NTU-FSRN partnership online events, which will be hosted annually.

2

Project Title: Co-production of neuroscience of learning resources for asynchronous teaching
(click here for project outcome) 

NTU PI: Dr Astrid Schmied, National Institute of Education (NIE)
Imperial PI: Dr Iro Ntonia, Centre for HE Research and Scholarship

This collaboration between faculty and students across both institutions, NTU and Imperial College, aims to co-produce and bring to life two educationally relevant lessons on key neuroscience of learning topics: attention and memory. Strategically, the core idea is for these lessons to not only act like whistle-stop introductions to content, but also to be used across both institutions. To accomplish this goal, the co-production is intentionally directed such a way where the learning experience would be equally accessible by students at either Imperial College or NTU, regardless of the students’ background and level of study.

3

Project Title: Digital Twins for Blended Learning with Classroom Flipping
 (click here for project outcome)

NTU PI: A/Prof Tan Chee Wei School of Computer Science and Engineering (SCSE)
Imperial PI: Prof Deniz Gunduz, Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department

This project proposes a tech-driven pedagogy to classroom flipping in which Imperial College and NTU students engage in interactive virtual learning, where the educator guides them to engage in the subject matter. Virtual learning by digital twins (i.e., a digital student peer with an AI chatbot interface) can harness the benefits of collaborative learning combined with low stakes assessment. 

This project aims to investigate:
       i.         whether a digital student peer can be constructed using machine learning models (digital twins) to promote collegial interaction between students at Imperial and NTU;
     ii.         how to enable blended online classroom flipping, originally designed for face-to-face learning environments, for a hybrid teaching environment with the digital twins.