The National Research Foundation (NRF) was set up on 1 January 2006 as a department under the Prime Minister's Office. It was set up to perform the following:

To provide secretariat support to the Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council (RIEC), chaired by the Prime Minister;
To coordinate the research of different agencies within the larger national framework in order to provide a coherent strategic overview and direction;
To develop policies and plans to implement the five strategic thrusts for the national R&D agenda; and
To implement national research, innovation and enterprise strategies approved by the RIEC, and to allocate funding to programmes that meet NRF's strategic objectives.

The National R&D Agenda

The National R&D Agenda consists of five strategic thrusts, namely:

To intensify national R&D spending to achieve 3% of GDP by 2010;
To identify and invest in strategic areas of R&D;
To fund a balance of basic and applied research within strategic areas;
To provide resources and support to encourage private sector R&D; and
To strengthen linkages between public and private sector R&D.

Strategic Thrust 1

Intensify national R&D spending

Our national expenditure on R&D, including the public and private sectors, at 2.36% of GDP in 2005, lags significantly behind other leading innovative countries, such as Finland and Sweden, which spend over 3% of their GDP on R&D.

Therefore, we must intensify our R&D efforts significantly. The NRF aims to achieve a national R&D spending target of at least 3% of GDP by 2010.

Strategic Thrust 2

Focus on areas of economic importance where Singapore can be internationally competitive

As a small country, Singapore has finite resources. Thus, we need to concentrate our resources around a small number of strategic areas to develop a critical mass of research capabilities in industries where we can be economically competitive.

Building on our existing foundation, we need to deepen and broaden our capabilities in current key clusters such as electronics, chemicals, aerospace and logistics, marine engineering, and biomedical sciences, by continuing to invest in R&D and research manpower development. This will enable us to gain a strong lead and maintain our competitive advantage. We will also continually look for new growth areas to sustain our economic growth over the long-term.

Strategic Thrust 3

Provide a balance of investigator-led and mission-oriented research in strategic areas

A vibrant research environment will help us identify emerging growth areas for economic renewal. Within the selected strategic areas, Singapore must be prepared to fund a broad spectrum of research, ranging from basic investigator-led research to applied and mission-oriented research.

Mission-oriented research willcontinue to have a significant role. Such research will be closely integrated with our industry development and investment promotion strategies. They will contribute to our economic objectives by focusing resources to support our key industries and potential new growth areas.

We should also increase support for basic investigator-led research that is broadly aligned with the long-term strategic interests of Singapore. This will help build the foundation for scientific excellence, create new knowledge, develop our own talent and attract talent from overseas to live and work in Singapore.

Strategic Thrust 4

Encourage more private sector R&D

This will be a key priority, as companies are best placed to decide which areas of R&D to invest in, and to align R&D investments with commercial opportunities.

Our economic promotion agencies will therefore have a critical role to facilitate and catalyse private sector investments in research and innovation.

We will review our incentive packages to better attract more global R&D centres and activities to Singapore. This should be supported by a high quality support framework, including a strong base of scientific and research manpower, and sophisticated intellectual property protection regulations.

To achieve the 3% GDP for national R&D spending by 2010, we must leverage better on public sector funding to increase private sector research. We would aim to eventually have two-thirds of R&D spending by the private sector with the balance of R&D spending by the public sector agencies. EDB will play a critical role in rapidly catalysing a research- and innovation-driven economy, and to draw in investment projects that will complement the transformation of the economy.

Strategic Thrust 5

Strengthen nexus between R&D and business

Our institutions must improve on their ability to exploit their research results, and have closer collaboration with industry.

We will review how to strengthen our technology transfer framework, as well as how we can reach out more effectively to local enterprises - for example, by promoting technology innovation in local enterprise through stronger co-funding frameworks between public and private sector. In particular, our polytechnics, which have developed strong applied research and downstream capabilities and industry networks, could be encouraged to link up with industry associations to collaborate on R&D initiatives.

This will help to strengthen innovation and uplift the technological and manpower capabilities of our enterprises.