Accelerating Creativity and Excellence (ACE) Programme
ACE Grant Calls & Outcomes

5th ACE Grant Call - Ending Plastic Waste
This thematic round is accepting proposals from 23 November 2020 through 15 January 2021, 17:00 hrs.
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4th ACE Grant Call & Outcome
The 4th ACE Grant, closed on 10th July 2020. Four proposals, each receiving funding for 2 years., were awarded in 2 thematic areas: Responsible AI and Food Science.
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Professor Subra Suresh, President of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), outlined strategies, priorities, and plans for the next five years to achieve the vision for the university presented in his February 2018 Inauguration address: to propel NTU in its next wave of major advance as one of the greatest global universities.
Speaking to more than 2,000 faculty and staff at a university town hall meeting, he announced specific targets and pathways that focused on:
• attracting top faculty, post-docs, staff and students to NTU Singapore;
• developing new academic and research entities and programmes that build on NTU’s unique and existing strengths;
• streamlining and enhancing administrative services and infrastructure; and
• fostering new models for inter-College collaboration and campus-wide community engagement.
Focus on creating new linkages and greater efficiencies
To encourage greater interdisciplinary collaboration between the various schools and colleges in NTU, Prof Suresh announced launch of the Accelerating Creativity and Excellence (ACE) Programme with a $10 million fund. This programme will support faculty members to catalyse bold and unconventional cross-disciplinary research across Colleges and provide seed funding for research in new areas.
The ACE grant calls can be either ‘Open’, to nourish unfettered, exceptional or curiosity-driven enquiry, or ‘Thematic’, when there is a need to rapidly intensify areas of strategic importance to NTU. In either case, the selection process is strongly biased towards uniqueness, timeliness and excellence.
Objectives of ACE:
- Spark audacious, creative and unusual thinking at the intersections of research disciplines
- Support the unfettered exploration of cutting-edge research domains, leading to new methodological approaches or addressing global challenges
Eligibility criteria:
- All faculty across NTU are eligible
- The proposed project must include participating faculty from at least two different colleges and/or research institutes