The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the largest private financier of research in Sweden, is making a S$9 million cash gift to Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) to establish a new postdoctoral fellowship program to support up to 40 fellows over the next six years.
Through this Wallenberg-NTU postdoctoral fellowship, some of Sweden's most outstanding young scientists will spend two years at NTU Singapore to conduct postdoctoral research.
NTU President, Professor Subra Suresh, believes that the partnership will leverage the strengths of NTU Singapore and Swedish universities to nurture talent and build intellectual capacity in many disciplines critical to the economy and society.
Professor Suresh said, "We are deeply grateful to the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, whose new generous gift comes after their S$12.6 million donation to NTU just three months ago. The Wallenberg family is known for their passion for cutting-edge research and technologies, and NTU is privileged to be one of only three international universities to benefit from the Wallenberg Foundation's recognition and support."
In July this year, NTU received a S$7.6 million gift from the Foundation to set up a postdoctoral fellowship to nurture early-career scientists and an additional S$5 million over five years in support of the postdoctoral fellows. With this latest S$9 million gift, the university has raised, with government matching, almost $30 million to date arising from the generous gifts by the Wallenberg Foundation to NTU in support of a new university-wide postdoctoral fellowship program established by President Suresh.
"This new gift by the Foundation to NTU will benefit not just the two countries, but the rest of the world. It will allow some of Sweden's most promising young scientists to carry out their research over a two-year period at NTU Singapore in many different disciplines across all our colleges and schools. It will support a cohort of young researchers working in many areas of importance and benefit to society," said Prof Suresh.
Mr Peter Wallenberg, chairman of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, said, "We are pleased to extend our post-doctoral program for young Swedish scientists to NTU, in addition to our present collaboration with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)."
Under this new Wallenberg-NTU postdoctoral fellowship, 40 new Fellows will be appointed over the next several years. The fellowship support will enable them to carry out their research at NTU, over a two-year period, in any discipline offered by Colleges and Schools across the entire university. Fellows who decide to return to a Swedish University after the two-year period may receive further support from the Foundation.
The Fellowship comes after the university's town hall meeting last month where Prof Suresh announced ambitious plans to create 350 new two-year postdoctoral positions, over 5 years, to attract the best and the brightest young researchers from around the world to perform research at NTU Singapore.
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