Government Reforms in Social Science and Humanities Research in Singapore

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Hi folks!

Hope you had a great Spring break. I thought I should post my presentation slides on this blog, for the benefit of those who weren’t around during our session last week or might find it handy to have a soft copy of the slides!

The gist of my presentation is as follows:

  • On 07 November 2016, Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam announced that the Ministry of Education will spend SGD$350 million (equivalent to USD$250 million) on social science and humanities research for the next five years.
  • The government will also establish Singapore’s very first Social Science Research Council, while establishing partnerships with existing institutes in the US such as the SSRC in Brooklyn and Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences at Stanford.
  • My presentation examines the implications and limitations of these newly implemented government policies, focusing particularly on the potential winners and losers of these reforms, in HE institutions and the wider society.

Please feel free to share with me your thoughts or questions on this recent government reform! Will look to hear from you, specially on how we might be able to address critics’ skepticism towards the huge amount of funding that is channelled into this project by the Singapore government (while governments in other parts of the world such as the Trump administration is trying to cut back heavily on funding for the arts and cultural expression), fair democratic representation of members in the SSRC (because right now it is predominantly made up of senior academics and civil servants) and conflict between the winners and losers of this reform. Thank you!

– Tim

(Final) Government Reforms in Social Science and Humanities Research in Singapore- A Case Study-1lxygfs

2 thoughts on “Government Reforms in Social Science and Humanities Research in Singapore”

  1. Dear Dai, thank you so much for your comments! I love how you quoted Steve Jobs, it really speaks to the marriage of liberal arts and technology that is so vital for groundbreaking innovation today. The rise of liberal arts programmes in Asia is not unique to Singapore, as we have seen from Lucia’s presentation that Korea, Japan, and China are designing their own version of liberal arts in their universities.

    It will be interesting to see how much of a global outlook these liberal arts curricula in Asia actually give to their students, and furthermore how far each country is open to accept researches across the world that seek to provide probable answers and solutions to social issues or phenomena that are particular to Asia.

  2. Hey Tim, great analysis on the pros and cons of this policy. I agree with you that NTU’s marrying STEM and liberal arts is a great move in order to become more innovative, to truly become pioneers in the global tech world.I think they’re thinking in line with Steve Jobs who famously pronounced that “It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough—it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing” (an analysis from The New Yorker on that here if you’re interested: http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/steve-jobs-technology-alone-is-not-enough). Interestingly, given the new US policy to cut back on arts and humanities, I think it is possible that Singapore, and other Asian countries expanding on their liberal arts offer, can absorb US artists and social scientists who are looking to move in response to the US policy. Yay globalization? 🙂

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