Programmes

Keywords: Blockchain, Fintech, Education, Research, Community Development

The NTU Centre in Computational Technologies for Finance (NTU-CCTF) is an inter-collegiate and
pan-university initiative, co-led by the College of Engineering, and Nanyang Business School, with
strong involvement from the College of Science, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
It seeks to be the nexus for blockchain education and research and foster a vibrant blockchain

ecosystem to advance blockchain development and adoption in Singapore, ASEAN and beyond.

Learn more about NTU-CCTF at https://ntu.edu.sg/cctf

Keywords: Geohazards, Geoscience, Geology

The Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) conducts fundamental research on earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis and climate in and around Southeast Asia, towards safer and more sustainable societies.

Natural hazards such as earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, and global climate change pose great threats to communities living in Southeast Asia. EOS acquires scientific knowledge in four main areas of research — climate, tectonics, volcano, and hazards, risk, and society. This knowledge is passed on to affected communities so that they can take the necessary precautions effectively and in a timely manner.

Research at EOS is carried out by an internationally diverse team of geoscientists, with these experts leading fieldwork throughout Southeast Asia and beyond. EOS also boasts a variety of state-of-the-art facilities and cutting-edge technology that support the Observatory’s research.

Programmes in community engagement and art and media attest to the Observatory’s commitment to create awareness of potentially destructive geological processes through various media in order to create more sustainable societies.

EOS is one of five Research Centres of Excellence established by the National Research Foundation and the Ministry of Education. Learn more about EOS at https://earthobservatory.sg/

Keywords: ERI@N; EcoCampus; REIDS

Established in June 2010, ERI@N’s mission is to be a leading research institute for innovative energy solutions with global impact. A large pool of researchers and staff coming from 25 nations across the world with wide skillsets and expertise in Science, Engineering, Technology, Policy, and Social science is creating a vibrant, multidisciplinary, and collaborative research environment at ERI@N.

Our key programmes include innovations in Sustainable Building Technologies, Fuel Cells and Energy Storage, Renewables (Solar, Wind & Marine) and Grid Integration, Multi Energy Systems and Smart Grids, Autonomous Vehicles and Electromobility and Maritime Clean Energy. The two flagship projects, EcoCampus and Renewable Energy Integration Demonstrator Singapore (REIDS) focus on bold and significant outcomes in energy efficiency and renewable energy integration. Through these programmes, ERI@N has been able to initiate a variety of projects in the realm of energy and sustainability in alliance with government agencies, leading industry players, and global universities and has also established joint research labs with Rolls-Royce (Electrical Power and Control Systems), Johnson Matthey (Materials – Batteries, Energy & Catalysis), Vestas (Grid integration), and BMW (Batteries, Electric Drive).

Please visit our website (https://ntu.edu.sg/erian) for more information on our programmes and research opportunities to shape a vibrant and sustainable energy future.

Keywords: Water, Environment

Globally ranked among the top research and technology organisations in the environment and water domain, the NEWRI ecosystem strives t​o take its lab-scale innovations to innovative engineered solutions for the water and environmental markets. With ‘Research-Engineering-Deployment’ (RED) as its guiding philosophy, NEWRI bridges deep research with cutting-edge innovation, robust engineering coupled with industry-level translation, to field applications, piloting and deployment at full scale in real life settings. Through industrial and CSR projects with commercial and social impact, NEWRI continuously strives to make a difference towards developing a true circular economy through efficient reuse innovations and harnessing the value in waste. The NEWRI ecosystem comprises five Centres of Excellence (Advanced Environmental Biotechnology Centre, Environmental Chemistry & Materials Centre, Environmental Process Modelling Centre, Residues & Resource Recovery Centre and Singapore Membrane Technology Centre), business development and a philanthropic initiative, an innovation cluster and an education and training unit​ in environmental science and engineering, that form an inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional ecosystem to provide holistic environmental engineered solutions. Learn more about NEWRI at https://ntu.edu.sg/newri

Keywords: Biofilms & Microbiomes; Sustainable Natural/Urban Ecosystems; Public Health

The Singapore Centre for Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) is a unique interdisciplinary Research Centre of Excellence (RCE), funded by National Research Foundation, Singapore Ministry of Education, Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and National University of Singapore (NUS). Hosted by NTU in partnership with NUS, SCELSE is linking new insights from the life sciences with expertise from the emerging technologies in engineering and natural sciences to understand, harness and control microbial biofilm communities and microbiomes. The biological processes essential for sustainable urban and natural environments reside with the activities of microbial communities (biofilms and microbiomes), which share commonalities across all systems. SCELSE research focuses on the universality of such biofilms and microbiomes to unravel biodiversity and function, and identify key mechanisms for sustainable environmental, engineering, public health and medical applications. Learn more about SCELSE at http://www.scelse.sg/.

Keywords: Catastrophe Risk Modelling, Financing of Catastrophes, Risk Exposure

We have recently witnessed massive increases of human and economic losses due to catastrophic events worldwide. These events are either natural or manmade with losses further exacerbated by globalization, urbanization, and climate change.  Asia poses special challenges with its low risk awareness and the risk being high. NTU's Risk Research Agenda is driven by the principle that catastrophic risk impacts the whole fabric of society. Developing risk mitigation strategies will require a robust public private partnership amongst government agencies, academia and industry players.

NTU’s Institute of Catastrophe Risk Management (ICRM) will be the first multi-disciplinary risk management research institute of its kind in Asia and amongst a handful worldwide focused on understanding, communicating and managing catastrophic risk. It will focus on catastrophe triggered insurance/reinsurance risks, sovereign risk, societal risk and some non-traditional risks, drawing upon science, engineering, finance, technology and socio-economics expertise across NTU. It will play a lead role in NTU's new wave of integrative research efforts and its strategic vision of Sustainable Earth. Learn more about ICRM at https://ntu.edu.sg/icrm

Keywords: Ageless Aging, Healthcare Technology, AI

Founded in 2012 with support from the National Research Foundation (NRF), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and The University of British Columbia (UBC) and industries, LILY is Singapore’s first research centre focusing on artificial intelligence (AI) research for successful aging. At LILY, we focus on developing Humanized AI technologies. Through cutting edge human-in-loop AI research including curious AI, persuasive AI, explainable AI and crowd AI, LILY has developed an ecosystem of humanized AI-powered platforms to help aging societies become “ageless”. LILY’s predictive analytics wellness game systems have extending high quality healthcare service provision from hospitals to individual seniors’ homes; the aging-in-place system enables seniors to lead an active, independent and dignified lifestyle at home while encouraging inter-generational communication; and the productive aging system empowers retirees to continue participate in social and economic development activities at their own pace in order to derive a sense of fulfilment while contributing their valuable wisdom and skills. By working closely with community organizations in Singapore, LILY has reached out to over 10,000 seniors. Technologies from LILY have been showcased to leaders around of the world, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The Humanized AI research championed by LILY has attracted strong interest from industry players such as Alibaba. Learn more about LILY at  https://ntu.edu.sg/lily/

Keywords: AI, Deep Learning, Computer Vision

The Rapid-Rich Object Search (ROSE) Lab was established in December 2012 as a joint collaboration between Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Peking University, China. The ROSE Lab is comprised of 10 faculty, 20 research staff and a total of 50 PhD students (since 2012) from the Schools of EEE and SCSE at NTU.

Much of our work involves the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning approaches, as well as domain generalisation and optimization approaches. Our research interests is focusing on visual object search (including object classification, recognition, & retrieval); video analytics & deep learning (including pedestrian detection, person re-identification, object tracking, action recognition); as well as multimedia forensics & biometrics (including face recognition and face liveness detection).

The ROSE Lab has published more than 300 papers in top conferences and journals.  The Lab has also secured 28 industry partners, including Tencent (one of the largest Internet companies in Asia), NVIDIA (the world’s leading visual computing company), Accenture (one of the world’s leading management consulting companies), OMRON (a leading Japanese industry automation company), VIPshop (China’s largest fashion eCommerce company), and Lockheed Martin (one of the world’s leading defense contractors). Learn more about ROSE at https://ntu.edu.sg/rose

Keywords: AI, Cloud, IoT
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and Alibaba Group officially launched the Alibaba-NTU Singapore Joint Research Institute (JRI) in February 2018, Alibaba’s first research institute on AI outside China. The joint research institute seeks to combine NTU’s human-centred AI technology in areas such as health, ageing, homes and communities, with Alibaba’s leading technologies including Natural Language Processing (NLP), computer vision, machine learning and cloud computing to apply real-life AI solutions. Over the next five years, the JRI will push the frontiers of AI to become more human-centric, more effective, accessible and inclusive, to address future societal needs in ageless aging, new lifestyles and human-centered mobility. These technologies will be developed and tested on the NTU Smart Campus to demonstrate the effectiveness of the solutions before taking them to the market in Singapore and rest of the world. The program dovetails with Singapore’s ambition to support the country’s “Smart Nation” vision and its transformation to “Industry 4.0”. The JRI is led by researchers from NTU-UBC Research Centre of Excellence in Active Living for the Elderly (LILY) and the School of Computer Science and Engineering. Learn more about ALIBABA-NTU-JRI at https://ntu.edu.sg/alibaba-ntu-jri

Bringing a new focus and understanding to the rapid transformation of Asia and its linkages to the rest of the world, Global Asia Peak integrates a broad spectrum of research strengths across the University including business studies, social sciences, the humanities and the natural sciences.

The Peak takes advantage of Singapore's geographical position at the heart of Asia and NTU's competitive advantage in business studies, international policies and the arts as well as strong roots and links to China, India and the surrounding parts of Southeast Asia. Asia accounts for 60% of the world's population, one third of its GDP and is now recognised as the supply chain and manufacturing hub of the planet. Understanding the new Global Asia has never been more important and the continuing growth of Asia is of particular relevance to Singapore. With the aim of contributing to the national development of Singapore in Asian context and offer academic leadership in this area, the Peak will adopt three foci - Business Asia, Cultural Asia and Transformational Asia. Learn more about Global Asia at Interdisciplinary Graduate Programme | College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences | NTU Singapore

Keywords: Education, Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience

The Interdisciplinary Graduate Programme (IGP) Thematic PhD Research in Future Learning at CRADLE@NTU aims to attract outstanding students with a passion for interdisciplinary research across areas of Education, Psychology, Neuroscience and Technology to catalyse new models, framework, translational research and technologies for Future Learning.

The programme seeks to nurture talents with the enthusiasm to optimize learning through cognitive neuroscience and education, using innovative technology for solutions that engage and support lifelong learning.  The doctoral candidate has the opportunity to be supervised by faculty across at least two Colleges, Schools, or Institutes within NTU.

The areas of research foci includes:

  1. Science of Adult Learning
  2. Innovations and Technologies in Learning
  3. Workforce Learning and the Future Economy

The successful candidate will work closely with researchers at the Centre for Research and Development in Learning (CRADLE), faculty from Colleges and Institutes across NTU (including National Institute of Education and LKCMedicine), and other international collaborators from institutes such as Johns Hopkins University, Imperial College London and/or University of Cambridge.

We welcome highly motivated candidates with an educational, engineering, psychology, or science background who are keen to work collaboratively with educators and learners. Learn more about CRADLE at https://ntu.edu.sg/cradle

Keywords: Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Science of Learning

The goal of our Programme is to develop outstanding young Neuroscientists who receive in-depth training in both the conceptual foundations and the most advanced technologies of the field. Our emphasis is on multidisciplinary training: our students will come from a broad range of academic disciplines that can include – but are not limited to - cellular/molecular biology, neurobiology, chemistry, engineering, computational sciences, artificial intelligence, cognitive science (including psychology and linguistics), medicine and other areas such as biophysics and mathematics. The Neuroscience Ph.D. Programme includes more than 80 faculty in 10 different schools from throughout NTU. Close interactions with these faculty, as well as their graduate student peers from a wide range of disciplines, create rich training and research opportunities for our students. Our students also are eligible to attend classes at NUS, further diversifying their training experiences and intellectual foundations. Via such training experiences, Neuroscience Ph.D. students will receive exceptionally broad training that will be extraordinary preparation for their future scientific

pursuits. Learn more about Neuroscience here.

Keywords: AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly important tool in diverse fields of Science and Technology. NTU has the critical mass to become a world leading authority in Interdisciplinary AI, or AI-X, where X can be any thematic discipline (Photonics, Energy, Smart Materials, Environmental Science & Water, Population Health, Neuroscience, Finance, Behavioral Science to mention a few).  AI has already been identified as a focus area and is expected to become one of the leading clusters in NTU’s Roadmap 2025 and beyond. The interdisciplinary Graduate Programme (IGP) would like to offer PhD candidates the opportunity to choose AI-X as a truly interdisciplinary theme during their 4 years of study in NTU. An AI faculty is expected to team up with a faculty in a thematic discipline to jointly identify a viable thesis project and supervise the candidate. A mentor is also expected to support and guide the candidate. The two faculties and the mentor form the Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC). 

IGP welcomes two types of candidates to apply to AI-X. The first category comprises candidates with a strong background in Computer Science and Engineering who would like to find novel applications of AI. The other category comprises candidates with a solid background in a thematic discipline (X) who need AI to tackle a specific scientific challenge. 

Keywords: molecular analytics, sensor technology, data sciences

IDMxS, the newly established research centre of excellence (RCE), aims to interface the biological world of the living with the world of information technology (IT) and data sciences. This integration will be transformative because the continuous and real-time feedback it enables will detect threats, inform policy, and guide action in response to developing situations in real-time.

Communication in living systems rely on highly specific molecular interactions. It is thus essential to design and fabricate synthetic systems that functionally engage the molecular components of biological communication networks in order to link them with the digital world of IT. The physical interface distils down to functionalizing optical or electronic materials with relevant biomolecular components, which may be synthetic or derived from natural systems. Such an interface will translate molecularly specific information from the biological world into optically and electronically readable signals. This scientific challenge is rooted in materials science and interfacial chemistry, which provides a unifying theme and helps ensure that the varied expertise of the faculties is brought to a sharp focus, maximizing the prospects of truly innovative breakthroughs. The same basic technical strategy can be readily translated to a vast array of different application areas, enabling this focused effort to have broad impact. IDMxS is well positioned to grow a name for Singapore as a global leader, develop local talent, and recruit the world’s best talent and industry to Singapore, at all levels.

KEYWORDS: responsible technology, STEM/Non-STEM, Societal Impact, 

Launched in 11 March 2019, the NTU Institute of Science and Technology for Humanity (NISTH) is an interdisciplinary centre of excellence to deeply understand the social context of science and technological innovation and its consequences for humanity. NISTH aims to realize real and positive change in the world by the unusual combinations of STEM and non-STEM research to tackle complex problems. Moving forward, NISTH focuses their activities in research, education, partnership and outreach across three strategic themes: (1) Social, economic and environmental sustainability in emerging urban Asia; (2) Responsible innovation for the benefit of humanity; and (3) Governance and leadership for a resilient Singapore.

Learn more about NISTH at https://www.ntu.edu.sg/nisth

Established in November 2018, The Strategic Centre for Research in Privacy-Preserving Technologies & Systems (SCRIPTS) focuses on the research, development and application of customised privacy-preserving technologies aligned with the national priorities of Singapore in the Services and Digital Economy of RIE2020, funded by IMDA and NRF.

SCRIPTS specialises in privacy-preserving technologies (PP-Tech) that are computing techniques used to preserve individual’s privacy while allowing maximum value and insight to be extracted from available data. These technologies enable organisations to carry out data mining, analysis and sharing in compliance with data protection regulation enacted in various jurisdictions.

Learn more about SCRIPTS at https://www.ntu.edu.sg/scripts