S$200m fund to help S’pore produce water solutions for the world

SINGAPORE — A fresh S$200 million from the National Research Foundation (NRF) will be pumped into Singapore’s water industry for the next five years to come up with water solutions for the world, and to quicken the pace of commercialisation and export of its water technologies.

Going beyond research and development that meet national objectives, Singapore will aim to develop water solutions for the world that tap Singapore’s strengths.

Already known for its membrane, desalination and sensor technologies, Singapore will continue to build its core expertise, but it will also delve into new areas such as automation and robotics, said national water agency PUB.

For example, robots and unmanned aerial vehicles can be used for inspection work in the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System when completed.

The funding will also be used to develop a range of capabilities and talent to support the water industry’s needs.

The new funding — the third tranche since 2006 — comes under the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2020 Plan launched in January, and brings the total research and development funding for water to S$670 million over 15 years.

The new targets for 2020 are to have 15,000 jobs in the industry and to grow the sector’s annual value-add contribution to S$2.85 billion.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who spoke of the investment during a dialogue at the Lee Kuan Yew Prize Award Ceremony and Banquet yesterday, said water has always been a “a strategic and high-priority issue”.

“And we’re putting in a lot of resources into that. For example, one of the reasons why we now have an adequate water supply in Singapore is (that) we’ve invested recycling (used) water, waste water — you purify it, you can use it again for industrial purposes, in fact you can drink it,” he said.

The global water industry is estimated to be worth more than US$850 billion this year (about S$1.1 trillion) and is expected to grow at an average annual rate of nearly 4 per cent until 2020.

To speed up the pace of commercialisation and the export of its technologies, a new Separation Technologies Applied Research and Translation (Start) centre will focus on the translation and technology scale-up of lab-scale R&D conducted in local research institutes.

Singapore is also positioning itself as a living lab for companies to develop, test and commercialise urban solutions in a real-life setting before exporting them globally.

The Economic Development Board’s (EDB) Overseas Living Lab programme will support Singapore-based firms to test and commercialise their technologies overseas, particularly sites with climatic conditions, or user environments that are not found in Singapore.

Among the various programmes to build a range of capabilities and talent in the water sector, the PUB and the EDB will be developing the pool of PhD and post-doctoral talent, and expanding the breadth of competency development initiatives.

In 2006, S$330 million was set aside by the NRF for water research and, thereafter, a top-up of S$140 million was made in 2011.

With previous years’ funding, the water industry has added over 14,000 jobs, while the annual value-added contribution from the water sector was more than S$2.2 billion, which exceeded its 2015 targets of 11,000 jobs and S$1.7 billion in value-add.