At the recently concluded G20 Summit, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the new UK-Singapore Strategic Partnership, which sets an ambitious direction for the longstanding relationship between the two nations.

The Strategic Partnership demonstrates the UK’s and Singapore’s shared commitment to strengthening bilateral relations at all levels, including free trade, international law and the rules-based multilateral system. It seeks to increase cooperation across trade and investment, finance, defence and security, digitalisation and cybersecurity, science and technology, education, culture and sustainable development.

The Strategic Partnership follows in the wake of the Digital Economy Agreement (2022) and the Green Economy Framework (2023).

Read the full joint declaration here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-singapore-joint-declaratio...

Why is this important for UK universities?

The Strategic Partnership outlines key focus areas for skills development (including artificial intelligence, IoT, cybersecurity, engineering biology, pandemic preparedness, precision medicine, population aging, and climate change) and commits to joint approaches that would enable knowledge exchanges, talent mobility, and research and innovation in these priority areas. UK HEIs should bear these priorities in mind when building and/or expanding academic research partnerships with their Singaporean counterparts.

The fact that the number of Singaporean students enrolled in engineering and technology has been declining since 2015/16 while those enrolled in computing courses in the UK lags behind that of other courses such as social sciences, medicine, business and law signals that the UK could well boost its profile further as an education leader in computer sciences and technology. More strategic marketing of study courses and research in these areas is therefore very necessary.