A*Star involved in 8,965 industry R&D projects in RIE2015

WITH the Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, announcing early this year the allocation of S$19 billion for research, innovation and enterprise (RIE) for the next five years, called RIE2020, A*Star on Monday announced an impressive report card for RIE2015, which concluded three weeks ago, which shows that sustainable R&D ecosystem has emerged in Singapore.

The nodal agency for R&D (research and development) in Singapore has been involved in 8,965 industry projects over the five-year period, almost six times that of the previous five-year tranche. This has resulted in more than S$1.6 billion in industry R&D spending.

The A*Star statistics reaffirm the fact that Singapore is an attractive R&D destination for large multinationals. Out of the 8,965 projects, 55 per cent were with large multinationals and they represented 90 per cent of the S$1.6 billion R&D spend. The agency has issued 1,030 licences over this period and out this 70 per cent were signed with small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).