The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a

national National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kno ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest

autonomous university An autonomous university typically refers to a university that exercises independent control over its day-to-day operations and curriculum, as opposed to a university in which the government or a government agency controls the academic programs. ...

in the country. It offers degree programmes in a wide range of disciplines at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including in the sciences, medicine and dentistry, design and environment, law, arts and social sciences, engineering, business, computing, and music. NUS is one of the most highly-ranked

academic institutions Academic institution is an educational institution dedicated to education and research, which grants academic degrees. See also academy and university. Types * Primary schools – (from French ''école primaire'') institutions where children r ...

in the world. It has consistently featured in the top 30 of the

Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for the ...

and the

Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' (often referred to as the THE Rankings) is an annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli ...

, and in the top 100 of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). As of 2022-2023, NUS is 11th worldwide according to QS and 19th worldwide according to THE. NUS's main campus is located in the southwestern part of Singapore, adjacent to the

Kent Ridge Kent Ridge is the name of a ridge and a neighbourhood located in Pasir Panjang, in the Queenstown Planning Area of Singapore. The area is notable for housing two parks within the Southern Ridges, Kent Ridge Park and HortPark. The main campus of ...

subzone of Queenstown, accommodating an area of . The

Duke–NUS Medical School The Duke–NUS Medical School (Duke–NUS) is a graduate school, graduate medical school in Singapore. The school was set up in April 2005 as the Duke–NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore's second medical school, after the Yong Loo Lin School ...

, a postgraduate

medical school A medical school is a tertiary educational institution, or part of such an institution, that teaches medicine, and awards a professional degree for physicians. Such medical degrees include the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS, M ...

jointly established with

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

, is located at the Outram campus; and its

Bukit Timah Bukit Timah, often abbreviated as Bt Timah, is a planning area and residential estate located in the westernmost part of the Central Region of Singapore. Bukit Timah lies roughly from the Central Business District, bordering the Central Wa ...

campus houses the

Faculty of Law A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

and

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School) is an autonomous postgraduate school of the National University of Singapore (NUS), named after the late former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew. History The Lee Kuan Yew School of ...

. The

Yale-NUS College Yale-NUS College is a liberal arts college in Singapore. Established in 2011 as a collaboration between Yale University and the National University of Singapore, it was the first liberal arts college in Singapore and one of the first few in Asi ...

, a joint liberal arts college between NUS and

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, is located next to the NUS University Town on the main campus. NUS includes one Nobel laureate, one

Tang Prize The Tang Prize () is a set of biannual international awards bestowed in four fields: Sustainable Development, Biopharmaceutical Science, Sinology, and Rule of Law. Nomination and selection are conducted by an independent selection committee, whic ...

laureate and one Vautrin Lud Laureate among its affiliated faculty members and researchers.

History

In September 1904,

Tan Jiak Kim Tan Jiak Kim CMG (29 April 1859 - 22 October 1917) was a Peranakan merchant, political activist and philanthropist from Singapore. He co-founded the Straits Chinese British Association along with Lim Boon Keng, Seah Liang Seah and Song Ong Sian ...

led a group of representatives of the Chinese and other non-European communities to petition the

Governor of the Straits Settlements The governor of the Straits Settlements was appointed by the British East India Company until 1867, when the Straits Settlements became a Crown colony. Thereafter the governor was appointed by the Colonial Office. The position existed from 1826 ...

Sir John Anderson John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley, (8 July 1882 – 4 January 1958) was a Scottish civil servant and politician who is best known for his service in the War Cabinet during the Second World War, for which he was nicknamed the "Home Front Pr ...

, to establish a medical school in Singapore. It was noted by Anderson that there were other petitions prior which were not successful due to concerns over having a sufficient number of students and support from the local community. Tan, who was the first president of the Straits Chinese British Association, managed to raise 87,077

Straits dollars The Straits dollar was the currency of the Straits Settlements from 1898 until 1939. At the same time, it was also used in the Federated Malay States, the Unfederated Malay States, Kingdom of Sarawak, Brunei, and British North Borneo. Histor ...

from the community, including a personal donation of $12,000. On 3 July 1905, the medical school was founded and was known as the ''Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School''. At Anderson's directions, the school was hosted temporarily at a recently emptied block at a Government-run asylum in Pasir Panjang while providing the staff required to run the school. In 1912, the medical school received an endowment of $120,000 from

King Edward VII Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria a ...

Memorial Fund, started by physician

Lim Boon Keng Lim Boon Keng (; 18 October 1869 – 1 January 1957) was a Peranakan physician who advocated social and educational reforms in Singapore in the early 20th-century. He also served as the president of Xiamen University in China between 1921 and ...

. Subsequently, on 18 November 1913, the name of the school was changed to '' King Edward VII Medical School''. In 1921, it was again changed to ''King Edward VII College of Medicine'' to reflect its academic status. In 1928, Raffles College, a separate institution from the medical school, was established to promote education in arts and social sciences.

University of Malaya (1949–1962)

On 8 October 1949, Raffles College was merged with King Edward VII College of Medicine to form the

University of Malaya The University of Malaya ( ms, Universiti Malaya, UM; abbreviated as UM or informally the Malayan University) is a public research university located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is the oldest and highest ranking Malaysian institution of highe ...

. The two institutions were merged to provide for the higher education needs of the

Federation of Malaya The Federation of Malaya ( ms, Persekutuan Tanah Melayu; Jawi script, Jawi: ) was a federation of what previously had been British Malaya comprising eleven states (nine Malay states and two of the British Empire, British Straits Settlements, P ...

. The growth of University of Malaya was very rapid during the first decade of its establishment and resulted in the setting up of two autonomous divisions in 1959, one located in Singapore and the other in

Kuala Lumpur , anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , su ...

Nanyang University (1955–1980)

In 1955,

Nanyang University Nanyang University (, also known as Nantah (), was a university in Singapore between 1956 and 1980. During its existence, it was Singapore's only private university in the Chinese language. In 1980, Nanyang University was merged with the Univer ...

(abbreviated Nan-tah, 南大) was established on the backdrop of the Chinese community in Singapore.

University of Singapore (1962–1980)

In 1960, the governments of then Federation of Malaya and Singapore indicated their desire to change the status of the divisions into that of a national university. Legislation was passed in 1961, establishing the former Kuala Lumpur division as the University of Malaya, while the Singapore division was renamed the University of Singapore on 1 January 1962.

Present form

The National University of Singapore (NUS) was formed with the merger of the University of Singapore and

on 6 August 1980. This was done in part due to the government's desire to pool the two institutions' resources into a single, stronger entity and promote English as Singapore's main language of education. The original crest of Nanyang University with three intertwined rings was incorporated into the new coat-of-arms of NUS. NUS began its entrepreneurial education endeavours in the 1980s, with the setting up of the Centre for Management of Innovation and Technopreneurship in 1988. In 2001, this was renamed the NUS Entrepreneurship Centre (NEC), and became a division of NUS Enterprise. NEC is currently headed by Wong Poh Kam and its activities are organised into four areas, including a business incubator, experiential education, entrepreneurship development and entrepreneurship research. NUS has 17 faculties and schools across three campus locations in Singapore – Kent Ridge, Bukit Timah and Outram.

Education

NUS has a semester-based modular system for conducting undergraduate courses. It adopts features of the British system, such as small group teaching (

tutorial A tutorial, in education, is a method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning process. More interactive and specific than a book or a lecture, a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the information to complete ...

s) on top of regular two-hour lectures, and the American system (

course credit A credit is the recognition for having taken a course at school or university, used as measure if enough hours have been made for graduation. University credits United States Credit hours In a college or university in the United States, student ...

s). NUS has 17 faculties and schools across three campuses, including a music conservatory.

Reputation and rankings

Overall rankings

The

2022 ranked NUS 11th in the world (1st in Asia). The

2023 placed NUS at 19th worldwide. NUS was also placed at 19th worldwide in the THE reputation rankings 2022. The U.S. News & World Report (USNWR) 2022-2023 Best Global Universities Rankings placed NUS at 26th worldwide. The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2022 ranked NUS 71st in the world. In 2020, NUS is ranked 29th among the universities around the world by

SCImago Institutions Rankings The SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) since 2009 has published its international ranking of worldwide research institutions, the SIR World Report. The SIR World Report is the work of the SCImago Research Group,METU Middle East Technical University (commonly referred to as METU; in Turkish, ''Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi'', ODTÜ) is a public technical university located in Ankara, Turkey. The university emphasizes research and education in engineering a ...

University Ranking by Academic Performance The University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) is a university ranking developed by the Informatics Institute of Middle East Technical University. Since 2010, it has been publishing annual national and global college and university rankin ...

. NUS was ranked first in Singapore and Asia Pacific, and 22nd in the world according to the 2018 Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and first in Asia Pacific and 11th in the world according to the 2018

QS World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for the ...

. In 2021, NUS was named the world's eighth most international university by the Times Higher Education.

Rankings by subjects / areas

According to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2022, NUS has been placed in the top 10 globally in sixteen subjects. In total, thirty-seven NUS programmes were ranked among world's top 50, making NUS the joint top university in Asia alongside

The University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

: In terms of the broad subject areas as defined by QS, NUS was ranked: According to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subjects (2023) which ranked universities in 11 different subjects, NUS was among the world's top 10 in three subjects (computer science, law, and engineering) and top 20 in four subjects (business and economics, physical sciences, clinical & health, and social sciences):

Graduate employability rankings

NUS graduates ranked 8th worldwide in the Times Higher Education's Global University Employability Ranking 2022, and 17th worldwide in the QS Graduate Employability Rankings 2022.

Faculties and schools

Business

The NUS Business School was founded as the Department of Business Administration in 1965. The NUS Master of Business Administration currently ranks 18th globally according to the Financial Times Global Rankings 2018. NUS also offers MBA degrees in collaboration with overseas universities such as

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

, and

Korea University Korea University (KU, ) is a private research university in Seoul, South Korea, established in 1905. The university is included as one of the SKY universities, a popular acronym referring to Korea's three most prestigious universities. The ...

Computing

The School of Computing established in 1998, has two departments – Computer Science; and Information Systems and Analytics.

Dentistry

National University Centre for Oral Health, February 2020

The Faculty of Dentistry had its early beginnings in 1929 as a Department of Dentistry within the King Edward VII College of Medicine. The faculty conducts a four-year dental course leading to the Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) degree.

Design and Engineering

The interdisciplinary College of Design and Engineering (CDE) was launched in 2021, bringing together two pre-existing faculties, the School of Design and Environment (SDE) and the Faculty of Engineering (FoE).

Design and Environment

The School of Design and Environment has three departments: Department of Architecture, Department of the Built Environment, and the Division of Industrial Design.

Engineering

The Faculty of Engineering was launched in 1968. It is the largest faculty in the university and consists of several departments spanning diverse engineering fields. The NUS Faculty of Engineering was ranked sixth in the world by the Academic Ranking of World Universities for Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences. It has also been ranked seventh in the world in the subject category of Engineering and Technology by the 2017 QS World University Subject Rankings and 2016-2017 Times Higher Education World University Subject Rankings.

Duke–NUS Medical School

The Duke–NUS Medical School (Duke–NUS) is a graduate medical school in Singapore. The school was set up in April 2005 as the Duke–NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore's second medical school, after the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, and before the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine. The Duke–NUS Medical School is a collaboration between

in North Carolina, United States and the National University of Singapore.

Humanities and Sciences

The interdisciplinary College of Humanities and Sciences (CHS) was launched in 2020, merging the two largest faculties, the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science.

Science

The Faculty of Science comprises multiple departments, spanning natural and applied science. The first female Dean of the Faculty of Science was Gloria Lim, who was appointed in 1973. She served a four-year term and was reappointed in 1979, but resigned after one year to allow Koh Lip Lin to continue his post. In 1980, University of Singapore merged with

to form NUS, resulting in overlapping posts.

Integrative sciences and engineering

The NUS Graduate School for Integrative Sciences and Engineering (NGS) was established in 2003. The principal purpose of NGS is "to promote integrative PhD research encompassing both laboratory work and coursework programmes which not only transcend traditional subject boundaries but also provides students with a depth of experience about science and the way it is carried out".

Law

The NUS Faculty of Law was first established as a Department of Law in the then University of Malaya in 1956. The first law students were admitted to the Bukit Timah campus of the university the following year. In 1980, the faculty shifted to the Kent Ridge campus, but in 2006 it relocated back to the Bukit Timah site. The faculty offers LLB, JD, LLM, and PhD programmes, alongside continuing education and graduate certificate programmes.

Medicine

The Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at NUS was first established as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School in 1905. The School uses the British undergraduate medical system, offering a full-time undergraduate programme leading to the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery MBBS. For Nursing, the Bachelor of Science (Nursing) conducted by the Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies is offered. The department also offers postgraduate programmes in nursing, medicine, and medical science.

Music

The Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music (YSTCM) is a collaboration between NUS and the

Peabody Institute The Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University is a private conservatory and preparatory school in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1857 and opened in 1866 by merchant/financier and philanthropist George Peabody (1795–1869) ...

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

. Singapore's first conservatory of music, YSTCM was founded as the Singapore Conservatory of Music in 2001. The School was renamed Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music after a gift was made by the family of the late Dr Yong Loo Lin in memory of his daughter.

Public health

The Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health is Singapore's first and only tertiary education institution for public health. It traces its beginnings to the University of Malaya's Department of Social Medicine and Public Health, formed in 1948.

Public policy

The Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy was established in 2004 as an autonomous graduate school of NUS. Although the School was formally launched in 2004, it inherited NUS's Public Policy Programme, which was established in 1992 in partnership with Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

University Scholars Programme

The University Scholars Programme (USP) was an undergraduate academic programme established in 2001 in NUS, which comprised a compulsory general education programme. USP admitted 240 undergraduates annually. USP students resided in Cinnamon College at the NUS University Town.

Yale-NUS College

The Yale-NUS College is a

liberal arts college A liberal arts college or liberal arts institution of higher education is a college with an emphasis on undergraduate study in liberal arts and sciences. Such colleges aim to impart a broad general knowledge and develop general intellectual capac ...

in Singapore which opened in August 2013 as a joint project of

and the National University of Singapore. It is an autonomous college within NUS, allowing it greater freedom to develop its own policies while tapping on the existing facilities and resources of the main university. Students who graduate receive a degree awarded by NUS.

Pericles Lewis Pericles Lewis is the Douglas Tracy Smith Professor of comparative literature at Yale University and the Dean of Yale College. Previously at Yale, he was the founding President of Yale-NUS College, a liberal arts college in Singapore that is join ...

, a former professor at Yale, was appointed as the founding president in 2012. In August 2021, NUS announced that it was going to merge Yale-NUS College with the University Scholars Programme to form a new honours college, NUS College, by 2025 The merger marks the dissolution of NUS's partnership with Yale University. The last class of Yale-NUS College students were those admitted in 2021, following which Yale-NUS would operate for several years until all of its students have graduated.

Teaching centres

NUS has a variety of teaching centres including: *Centre for Development of Teaching and Learning (CDTL) *Centre for Instructional Technology (CIT) *Centre for English Language Communication (CELC) *

Institute of Systems Science Established in 1981, NUS-ISS previously known as the Institute of Systems Science ( Abbreviation; ) at the National University of Singapore runs graduate education, professional development programmes, consultancy, applied research and career se ...

(ISS), which offers professional IT continuing education *Centre for Teaching and Learning CTL at Yale-NUS College

NUS High School of Mathematics and Science

NUS High School of Mathematics and Science is a school specialising in mathematics and science, and provides secondary and pre-tertiary education to students with inclinations to these fields.

Research

The major research focuses at NUS are biomedical science, physical science, engineering, nanoscience, material science, information technology, humanities, social sciences, and defence. One of several niche research areas of strategic importance to Singapore being undertaken at NUS is bioengineering. Initiatives in this area include bioimaging,

tissue engineering Tissue engineering is a biomedical engineering discipline that uses a combination of Cell (biology), cells, engineering, Materials science, materials methods, and suitable biochemistry, biochemical and physicochemical factors to restore, maintai ...

and tissue modulation. The university has received a number of grants from the

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), a merging of the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was l ...

for research into areas including

vaccine A vaccine is a biological Dosage form, preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious disease, infectious or cancer, malignant disease. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has been widely studied and verifie ...

development,

water treatment Water treatment is any process that improves the Water quality, quality of water to make it appropriate for a specific end-use. The end use may be drinking water, drinking, industrial water supply, irrigation, river flow maintenance, water recrea ...

mobile devices in healthcare mHealth (also written as m-health or mhealth) is an abbreviation for mobile health, a term used for the practice of medicine and public health supported by mobile devices. The term is most commonly used in reference to using mobile communication ...

iris recognition Iris recognition is an automated method of biometric identification that uses mathematical pattern-recognition techniques on video images of one or both of the irises of an individual's eyes, whose complex patterns are unique, stable, and can b ...

, synthetic antibodies,

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...

, and government response to the

COVID-19 pandemic in Asia The COVID-19 pandemic began in Asia in Wuhan, Hubei, China, and has spread widely through the continent. As of , at least one case of COVID-19 had been reported in every country in Asia except Turkmenistan. The Asian countries with the highe ...

Research institutes and centres

Currently, NUS hosts 21 university-level research institutes and centres (RICs) in various fields. Four of these RICs have been designated Research Centres of Excellence by the Singapore government — the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore,

Centre for Quantum Technologies The Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) in Singapore is a Research Centre of Excellence hosted by the National University of Singapore. The Centre brings together physicists, computer scientists and engineers to do basic research on quantum phy ...

, Mechanobiology Institute, and Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials. Besides university-level RICs, NUS also affiliates with other universities to establish research centres and institutes. The Logistics Institute – Asia Pacific is a collaborative effort between NUS and the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

for research and education in logistics. The Next Age Institute, a partnership with

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...

, is the most recent cross-university centre involving NUS, established in February 2015.

Entrepreneurship

NUS began its entrepreneurial education endeavours in the 1980s, establishing the Centre for Management of Innovation and Technopreneurship in 1988. In 2001, this was renamed the NUS Entrepreneurship Centre (NEC), and became a division of NUS Enterprise, the entrepreneurial arm of NUS. Its activities include entrepreneurial education and outreach, technology commercialisation, and a business incubator. The NUS Overseas Colleges (NOC) programme was started in 2001, giving students the opportunity to experience, live, work and study in an entrepreneurial hub. Participants of the programme either spend 6 months or a year overseas, taking courses at partner universities and working in start-ups. The NUS Industry Liaison Office (ILO) is another department that is involved in the creation of deep tech start-ups. It manages the university's technology transfer and promotes research collaborations with industry and partners. ILO manages NUS intellectual property, commercialises its intellectual assets and facilitates the spinning off of technologies into start-up companies.

Campus facilities and resources

IT and computing services

NUS hosts NUSNET, an

intranet An intranet is a computer network for sharing information, easier communication, collaboration tools, operational systems, and other computing services within an organization, usually to the exclusion of access by outsiders. The term is used in c ...

, which is used in research, teaching, learning and administration. In 2004, a campus-wide grid computing network was deployed, connecting at least 1,000 computers. At the time, it was one of the largest of such virtual supercomputing facilities in the region.

Library services

The NUS Libraries comprises 8 libraries: the Central Library, Chinese Library, CJ Koh Law Library, Hon Sui Sen Memorial Library, the Medical Library, Music Library, Science Library and East Asian Institute Library. As of June 2017, there are 2,354,741 unique titles, and 26,074 microform resources in the collection.

NUS University Town

The NUS University Town (UTown) opened in August 2011. Located at the Kent Ridge campus, it was built on the site of a former golf course. UTown hosts the four residential colleges of NUS and also contains a graduate residence.

Transportation

The university has a free

Internal Shuttle Bus The Internal Shuttle Bus is a network of bus routes that operate within the National University of Singapore Kent Ridge campus and between the Kent Ridge and Bukit Timah campuses. The system is operated by ComfortDelGro and is entirely free of c ...

system that operates across the Bukit Timah and Kent Ridge campuses.

Student accommodation

NUS has three types of student accommodation: halls of residence, student residences, and residential colleges. There are about 6,000 residential places distributed between halls of residence and student residences on campus, in addition to around 4,100 students who live in the residential colleges and graduate residences.

Halls of residence

NUS has 7 Halls of Residence with about 3,000 residential places. A points system, based on co-currciular activities and leadership roles, is used to allocate residential places to students. Halls have their own interest groups and student productions in addition to university-wide student co-curricular activities. Halls compete with each other in the Inter-Hall Games. The Halls of Residence are: * Eusoff Hall * Kent Ridge Hall * King Edward VII Hall * Raffles Hall * Sheares Hall * Temasek Hall

Student residences

NUS has two student residences — Prince George's Park Residences and UTown Residences — for undergraduate and graduate students. The residences are arranged in clusters of 11 to 15 single rooms, with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities. The UTown Residences also has apartments for students.

Residential colleges

NUS also houses residential colleges, which are modeled after the college systems of universities. Like halls, residential colleges have unique co-curricular activities. Residential colleges also have their own academic programmes, with general education requirements differing from each other and the rest of the university. The academic programmes in residential colleges take place in

seminars A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some parti ...

Cinnamon College/West Wing

Cinnamon College housed the University Scholars Programme (USP) until the 2021 intake. Together with the current Yale-NUS College Campus (which has been renamed the "West Wing"), the college will house the NUS College from the 2022 intake onwards. USP students and faculty are accommodated in 600 rooms.

Tembusu College

Tembusu College was the second residential colleges in NUS University Town. Tembusu houses mainly first and second-year undergraduates, in addition to resident faculty, visiting scholars and graduate fellows. The former founding Rector of Tembusu College is Singapore's Ambassador-at-Large and former United Nations Ambassador

Tommy Koh Tommy Koh Thong Bee (; born 12 November 1937) is a Singaporean diplomat, lawyer, professor and author who served as Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations between 1968 and 1971. Early life and education Koh was born in S ...

, who is also the former Dean of the NUS Faculty of Law.

College of Alice & Peter Tan

The College of Alice & Peter Tan (CAPT) is a Residential College for all NUS undergraduates which emphasizes active citizenship and community engagement. It provides a two-year academic programme.

Residential College 4

Residential College 4 (RC4) is another Residential College in NUS.

Ridge View Residential College

Ridge View Residential College (RVRC) was formally established in April 2014, housed in the former Ridge View Residences. It is the only residential college that is situated outside University Town. The site was the former location for Kent Ridge Hall until November 2002. In November 2015, an annex building to RVRC was constructed. It was completed in February 2017.

List of principal officers

The following table is a list of the principal officers of the National University of Singapore's predecessors. Note that the office of the President of Raffles College was renamed Principal of Raffles College from 1938.

Alumni

Since its inception in 1905, NUS has had many distinguished alumni from Singapore and Malaysia, including 4 Singaporean prime ministers and presidents, 2 Malaysian prime ministers, politicians, judiciaries, business executives, educators and local celebrities. It counts among its graduates heads of states

Abdul Razak Hussein Tun Haji Abdul Razak bin Dato' Hussein ( ms, عبد الرزاق بن حسين, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset; 11 March 1922 – 14 January 1976) was a Malaysian lawyer and politician who served as the 2nd Prime Minister of Malaysia f ...

, Benjamin Sheares,

Goh Chok Tong Goh Chok Tong (; born 20 May 1941) is a Singaporean former politician who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1990 and 2004, and Secretary-General of the People's Action Party between 1992 and 2004. He was the Parliament of Singapore, ...

Mahathir Mohamad Mahathir bin Mohamad ( ms, محاضير بن محمد, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset; ; born 10 July 1925) is a Malaysian politician, author, and physician who served as the 4th and 7th Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the office ...

and S. R. Nathan. The first prime minister of Singapore,

Lee Kuan Yew Lee Kuan Yew (16 September 1923 – 23 March 2015), born Harry Lee Kuan Yew, often referred to by his initials LKY, was a Singaporean lawyer and statesman who served as Prime Minister of Singapore between 1959 and 1990, and Secretary-General o ...

, attended Raffles College briefly before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. A number of its graduates are also notable politicians such as

Rais Yatim Tan Sri Dato' Seri Utama Dr. Rais bin Yatim ( Jawi: رئيس بن يتيم; born 15 April 1942) is a Malaysian politician who is now serving as the 18th President of the Dewan Negara since September 2020. He was a Cabinet Minister in mul ...

, Malaysia's former minister for information, communications and culture, Ng Eng Hen, Singapore's minister of defence, and S. Jayakumar, Singapore's former deputy prime minister, United Nations representative, and minister for law, home affairs, labour, and foreign affairs. Many of Singapore's business leaders come from NUS, including as former chairman of the

Singapore Exchange The Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX) is a Singaporean investment holding company that provides different services related to securities and derivatives trading and others. SGX is also a member of the World Federation of Exchanges and the Asian ...

and

Singapore Tourism Board The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Government of Singapore, tasked to promote the country's tourism industry. History The board was first established on 1 January 1964 and wa ...

Chew Choon Seng, CEO of the

Hyflux Hyflux Ltd (Hyflux) was a sustainable products and research company listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX). The company was founded in 1989 by Olivia Lum, Group CEO, President and Managing Director. In 2006, the company was given the 'Wate ...

Group

Olivia Lum Olivia Lum Ooi Lin is a Singaporean businesswoman. She is best known for being the founder, group chief executive officer, and president of the Singapore-based Hyflux Group. She also heads the Research and Development function. Early life L ...

, CEO of the

Temasek Holdings Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited, or simply Temasek, is a Singaporean state holding company owned by the Government of Singapore. Incorporated on 25 June 1974, Temasek owns and manages a total of US$496.59 billion (S$671 billion) in assets u ...

Ho Ching Ho Ching (; born 27 March 1953) is a Singaporean businesswoman who has been serving as the director of Temasek Trust since 2021. She is the wife of incumbent Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Ho joined Temasek Holdings as a director in January ...

, chairman of

SPRING Singapore The Standards, Productivity and Innovation Board ( abbreviation: SPRING Singapore) was a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Singapore Government. It worked as an agency for enterprise development, and helped enterp ...

Philip Yeo Noel Philip Yeo Liat Kok (Chinese: 杨烈国; born 1946), DUNU (First Class), is the Chairman oEconomic Development Innovations SingaporeAdvanced MedTech HoldingsanAccuron Technologies From April 2007 to March 2018, Yeo was Chairman of Standard ...

and CEO of

Razer Inc Razer may refer to: * Razer (Canadian TV channel), former name of MTV2, a Canadian digital television specialty service * Razer Inc., a Singaporean-American computer peripherals manufacturer specializing in PC gaming * Razer Phone, a smartphone desi ...

Min-Liang Tan Min-Liang Tan or Tan Min Liang (born 5 November 1977) is a Singaporean businessman, internet entrepreneur and former lawyer. He is the co-founder, chairman, chief executive officer (CEO) and creative director of the gaming hardware company Razer ...

. In international politics, NUS counts among its graduates former director-general of the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of h ...

Margaret Chan Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, (born 21 August 1947) is a Chinese-Canadian physician, who served as the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) delegating the People's Republic of China from 2006–2017. Chan previously served a ...

, former president of

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...

Kishore Mahbubani Kishore Mahbubani (born 24 October 1948) is a Singaporean diplomat and geopolitical consultant who served as Singapore Permanent Representative to the United Nations between 1984 and 1989, and again between 1998 and 2004, and President of the ...

, and vice-president of the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

Ng Ser Miang Ng Ser Miang, (; born 6 April 1949) is a Singaporean entrepreneur, diplomat, and retired sailor. He founded Trans-Island Bus Services (now known as SMRT Buses) in 1982 and is a board member of Singapore Press Holdings. Since 1990, he has been ...

. NUS served as Singapore's only law school for half a century, until the

Singapore Management University The Singapore Management University (SMU) is a public autonomous university in Singapore. The university is the only city campus in Singapore. It ranks third in Asia as a specialist university, behind Hong Kong University of Science and Techn ...

was set up in 2007. Many of Singapore's judges and lawyers come from the school. This includes Singapore's minister for law and for home affairs

K. Shanmugam Kasiviswanathan Shanmugam ( ta, காசிவிஸ்வநாதன் சண்முகம்; born 26 March 1959), better known as K. Shanmugam, is a Singaporean politician and lawyer who has been serving as Minister for Law since 2008 ...

, the fourth

Chief Justice of Singapore The chief justice of Singapore is the chief justice, presiding member of the Supreme Court of Singapore. It is the highest post in the judicial system of Singapore, appointed by the President of Singapore, president, chosen from the candidates rec ...

Sundaresh Menon Sundaresh Menon (born 26 February 1962) is a Singaporean lawyer and jurist who has been serving as the fourth chief justice of Singapore since 2012, appointed by President Tony Tan. Education Sundaresh graduated from the National University of ...

and the third Chief Justice of Singapore

Chan Sek Keong Chan Sek Keong (born 5 November 1937) is a Malayan-born Singaporean retired judge who served as the third chief justice of Singapore between 2006 and 2012, appointed by President S. R. Nathan. Prior to his appointment as chief justice, he se ...

. In academia, NUS faculty include former vice-president of finance for the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

and

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

Yoke San Reynolds, and former vice-chancellor of the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fi ...

Wang Gungwu Wang Gungwu, (; born 9 October 1930) is a Chinese-Singaporean historian, sinologist, and writer. He is a historian of China and Southeast Asia. He has studied and written about the Chinese diaspora, but he has objected to the use of the word ...

. File:Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore Making a Toast at a State Dinner Held in His Honor, 1975.jpg, alt=,

, first prime minister of Singapore File:GohChokTong-WashingtonDC-20010614.jpg,

, Singapore's second prime minister File:Tony Tan Keng Yam cropp.jpg,

Tony Tan Keng Yam Tony Tan Keng Yam (; born 7 February 1940) is a Singaporean former politician who served as the seventh president of Singapore between 2011 and 2017. He did not seek for a second term as president in 2017 due to a constitutional amendment. ...

, Singapore's seventh president File:President of Singapore SR Nathan.jpg, S. R. Nathan, Singapore's sixth and longest-serving president File:Mahathir Mohamad addressing the United Nations General Assembly (September 25 2003).jpg,

, fourth and seventh prime minister of Malaysia File:Margaret Chan - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2011 crop.jpg,

, director-general of the World Health Organization File:Kishore Mahbubani - World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2011.jpg,

, former president of the United Nations Security Council File:Halimah Yacob APEC Women and the Economy Forum 2012.jpg,

Halimah Yacob Halimah Yacob (Jawi script: ; born 23 August 1954) is a Singaporean politician and former lawyer who has been serving as the eighth president of Singapore since 2017. Prior to her presidency, she was the country's Speaker of the Parliament of S ...

, Singapore's eighth and current president File:NgEngHen2017.jpg, Ng Eng Hen, Singapore's current defence minister File:Graduationshaari.gif, Sha'ari Tadin, member of Parliament and founder of Singapore Central Council (Majlis Pusat Singapura)

References

External links

*
National University of Singapore official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:National University Of Singapore ASEAN University Network Educational institutions established in 1980 Education in Singapore 1980 establishments in Singapore Queenstown, Singapore Tanglin Autonomous Universities in Singapore