The government of Singapore has announced that it plans to spend $13.2 billion on research and development between 2016 and 2020, ScienceInsider reports. This Research Innovation Enterprise 2020 Plan represents an 18 percent increase over the previous five-year funding scheme, it notes.
Some 21 percent of the RIE2020 budget is to go toward health and biomedical sciences, ScienceInsider says, with an especial focus on how to deal with Singapore's rapidly aging population. Singapore's A*STAR's Biopolis research complex will also see fruits of this budget increase, it adds.
"The impact of RIE2020 overall will be very positive," Chorh Chuan Tan, president of the National University of Singapore and deputy chairman of A*Star, tells ScienceInsider. "This is an assurance of sustained support for research in Singapore."