ANNUAL REPORT 2017/18 7
over the past three years. A number have also gotten
into renowned graduate schools such as Cambridge,
Harvard, MIT, etc.
SUTD is also entering into its next phase of growth and
has identified four key areas to focus on – Healthcare,
Cities and Aviation, supported by capabilities in
Artificial Intelligence/Data Science. These are in
addition to our existing capabilities in Design and
Digital Manufacturing. With the strong support from
the Ministry of Education, a $75-million budget has
been set aside to help us spearhead these growth
plans. The funds will be used to develop a suite of
integrated, cross-disciplinary programmes in key
economic sectors that will further enhance our
education and research offerings, allowing us to
better prepare graduates for the future economy, and
support national growth priorities.
Some examples of what we have already implemented
include launching the SUTD-Duke-NUS Special track,
which aims to nurture future clinician innovators who
are adept at both practising medicine and harnessing
technological advancements across disciplines to
impact healthcare; integrating artificial intelligence-
related subjects into our undergraduate curriculum;
and developing five new minor programmes that are
focused on the areas of entrepreneurship, artificial
intelligence, digital humanities and computational
social sciences. Furthermore, we have also added
more graduate programmes to our portfolio of
education options – the Master of Science in Urban
Science, Policy and Planning and the SUTD-Chang
Gung University (CGU) Dual Masters Programme in
Nano-Electronic Engineering and Design.
This year, we also stepped up our efforts in lifelong
learning with the opening of our SUTD Academy,
which provides skills-based professional education and
training courses for adult learners. The Academy aims
to help up-skill and re-skill adult learners in emerging
areas such as data analytics and cybersecurity as well
as create more education pathways for them. We are
currentlyworkingwith various partners from the private
and public sector to gain industry perspectives
and co-develop courses that will impart skills to
help workers stay relevant in today’s knowledge-
intensive and technology-driven economy.
We have now grown our research capacity to 11
research centres, the newest of which is the LTA-
SUTD Transport Research Centre that will focus
on research in key areas such as cybersecurity,
automation and robotics, data analytics, behavioural
studies and user-centric design in transport solutions.
In addition, I amhappy to note that Clarivate Analytics’
2017 State of Innovation Report has ranked SUTD as
the fifth-most influential scientific research institution
in telecommunications, based on the citation impact
of research papers.
This is a good affirmation of our research development
and we will of course continue to work hard to
further progress our research, especially in the four
key areas we have identified.
We have definitely grown a lot as a university over
this past year and I would like to thank faculty, staff,
students, parents, partners, benefactors and many
others stakeholders who have helped contribute to
our achievements. We hope to continue building upon
the strong foundation we have achieved over the past
eight years and ensure that SUTD continues to deliver
a truly unique and world-class university experience
for our students to impact the world by design.
Professor Chong TowChong
SUTD President
I am happy to note that Clarivate
Analytics’ 2017 State of Innovation
Report has ranked SUTD as the fifth-most
influential scientific research institution
in telecommunications, based on the
citation impact of research papers.
