Singapore universities ditch ‘competition for the sake of it’ 

Sharing research equipment, student data and start-up expertise is a “win-win” for Singapore’s top universities, the head of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has said, as the country's institutions focus on prioritising collaboration over competition. 

NTU president Teck Hua Ho said a recent agreement with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to share high-value research equipment would be “better for Singapore” as a whole, by helping attract more researchers and saving money. 

The partnership, launched in 2025, means scientists at both institutions will be able to access the others’ facilities. 

At a time when Singapore is keen to attract international talent, Ho said researchers might be deterred from joining a university they like because it lacks a specialist piece of equipment they require for their work.  

He joked that NUS and NTU had decided to treat equipment exchange like student exchange. “We just kind of even it out a bit,” Ho continued. “If there’s a great trade imbalance, we’ll figure out a way to do cost recovery”. 

Despite NTU commonly coming second to NUS as Singapore’s top university, Ho said there was “no reason” to compete, adding that he hoped the two institutions would boast more “top-tier publications” in the coming years thanks to the sharing of research equipment. 

Before joining NTU, Ho was senior deputy president and provost of NUS, working closely with NUS president Eng Chye Tan. 

The relationship between the two academics goes back much further. Ho described Tan as an old friend, with both having completed their undergraduate degrees at NUS at the same time and, at one point during this period, living across the hallway from one another. 

He continued: “We are competing in getting better students and getting better talent but at the same time, we collaborate because…we strongly believe that working together will make both universities a lot stronger.”

Ho said the partnership between the institutions goes beyond just physical equipment, with the universities also using shared data on student outcomes to improve their programmes. 

This means, in cases where certain students at NUS are seeing better employment outcomes, NTU can analyse which courses they were taking and use the information to tweak their own programmes, and vice versa.

“I can improve on my course offering a bit,” he said. “Maybe they offer a class that’s very compelling that we don’t have [or] I offer a class that actually was a game changer for a particular job that they’re looking for. For me, this kind of sharing is a win-win for both.”

The two institutions also launched a partnership with state-owned investment firm Temsak in 2023, with all three jointly investing S$75 million (£43.27 million) to accelerate the creation of deep technology start-ups from the pipeline of research at NTU and NUS. 

The universities also launched a joint intellectual property library and now share expertise to help support more spin-outs and collaborative start-ups. 

Ho described these ventures as a “game changer” for the universities, meaning their respective start-ups, and the networks that support these, can work together. 

“We are just about creating a unicorn – that’s the ultimate goal, not competing for the sake of competing.”

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com