Change of leadership at ETH in Singapore
At the start of the year, Gisbert Schneider handed over management of the Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC) to Manu Kapur. The outgoing SEC Director looks back in an interview at his three years in office and explains why he is keeping one foot in Singapore.
Gisbert Schneider joined ETH Zurich in 2010 as a Full Professor for Computer-Assisted Drug Design. It was in the same year that the university opened its branch in Singapore, which Schneider has managed as Director for the last three years. The start of his term of office was shaped by the coronavirus pandemic. It has nevertheless been possible in recent years to enhance the profile of the ETH location in Singapore and position it as a hub of Swiss science diplomacy.
How important is the research centre in Singapore for ETH?
Gisbert Schneider: The SEC offers Swiss researchers not only an outstanding research environment but above all also the opportunity to experience and pursue science outside the European context. This is an enormous enrichment not just for the individual researchers but also for ETH as a whole as many markets of the future are in Asia. What makes the SEC special is the fact that the linking of scientific cultures takes place here in a highly dynamic environment. This is a great source of strength. We are now very fortunate to have Manu Kapur taking over the management. I couldn’t imagine a better bridge builder.
Let’s look back on your time at the SEC. How has the research centre developed in the last three years?
For one thing it has grown further. The SEC community now comprises a total of around 300 researchers working on a large number of different projects – from urban planning to digital medicine. The focus here is on man and the question of how we wish to live and work in the future. “The future is green, clean and healthy” serves equally as both a motto and incentive. For example, after ten years we have relaunched the initial flagship project, the Future Cities Laboratory (FCL), as “FCL Global”, and we’ve initiated a third flagship programme in the form of Future Health Technologies (FHT). At the same time, the SEC has received a lot of recognition in its function as a Swiss hub in Asia.
In what respect?
Our numerous contacts, including to Swiss embassies in the region, have enabled us to establish a network that transcends research. The SEC is now mentioned by name in the Swiss South East Asia Strategy. That’s something we can be proud of as ETH. We essentially invite both ETH spin-offs and other Swiss companies to spend some time at the SEC getting to know the multicultural Lion City. The SEC offers the space and opportunity for a first visit to scent the air and also establish initial business contacts.
Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC)
The Singapore-ETH Centre was founded in 2010 by ETH Zurich and Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF) as part of the NRF CREATE Campus. The research centre brings together around 300 researchers from various disciplines. They work within the framework of three flagship programmes – Future Cities Lab Global, Future Resilient Systems and Future Health Technologies – and on around 50 short to medium-term projects, including Cooling Singapore and Digital Underground.
Further information: https://sec.ethz.ch
When the SEC commenced operations in 2010, it was referred to as a research laboratory. The idea was for the results to also take effect in Switzerland. How does this knowledge transfer work?
The transfer comprises scientific findings, engineering solutions in the form of prototypes, ready-to-use products and recommendations for action. We have introduced a dual hub system that serves as a bridge between the locations. For example, as well as its physical branch in Singapore, the Future Cities Lab Global also has one in Zurich. Solutions developed in Singapore with a view, for instance, to cooling the city, energy efficiency and climate modelling are attracting much interest not only for urban planning in Zurich but also in other cities in Switzerland and across the world.
You mentioned the Future Health Technologies programme. How has this got under way?
Under exceptional circumstances. When I came to Singapore at the beginning of 2021, we initially all spent a year working from home. Singapore had tackled the coronavirus pandemic very effectively, but with severe measures that greatly hindered us. We therefore prepared the launch of the programme largely online via video chat. The FHT teams in Singapore and Zurich really did a tremendous job during this start-up phase. Some of the projects are now already very far advanced. For example, the idea is to identify the risk of falls before they happen, particularly for older people. We can draw here on machine-learning methods and artificial intelligence. These analyses are now also to be applied in Switzerland.
And then there’s a third flagship programme…
The Future Resilient Systems programme – FRS. We’re currently in the middle of the second five-year phase here. We’ve successfully focused the programme on specific issues. Now we wish to translate the research findings into tangible products in the next two years. A good example is the InfraRisk initiative that models the risks of natural hazards for infrastructures. Talks are currently under way here with the City of Zurich regarding how these models could be meaningfully deployed. They have already been applied to other cities.
Now you’ve handed over the management to Manu Kapur. What lies ahead for your successor?
Further increasing the visibility of the SEC at ETH and in Switzerland will be the decisive factor. We also need to continue attracting and gaining outstanding researchers for the SEC. To start with, the flagship programmes will continue to run: FCL Global in the field of urban planning, FRS in resilience research and FHT in health research. On top of this there are the smaller programmes and projects that continuously require funding and need to be supported and then brought to a conclusion. The Managing Director of the SEC, Thomas Meyer, also does an outstanding job assisting with all these planning and coordination tasks. Manu will launch and implement his own ideas.
Gisbert Schneider
Gisbert Schneider studied biochemistry, medicine and computer science at the Freie Universität Berlin. After his doctoral degree, his research took him around the world. Following employment in the pharmaceutical industry, he was offered a position as full professor at Goethe University Frankfurt. He has been Full Professor for Computer-Assisted Drug Design in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich since 2010. From 2018 until 2020, he was Associate Vice President ETH Global and, from early 2021 until the end of 2023, he was Director of the Singapore-ETH Centre in Singapore.
What are your plans now after Singapore?
I’m going to stay at the SEC as a member of the Governing Board and am looking forward to helping to shape the branch in Singapore at the strategic level alongside supporting Manu in this role. I’m also thinking at present about pursuing my own research at the SEC, which is to discover new drugs with the aid of artificial intelligence. Singapore is a major centre of Chinese medicine – an ideal place for assessing pharmacologically active natural substances and using them to develop commercially viable medications.
Following Singapore, ETH has announced its plan to open a second branch in Heilbronn. Has experience been gained that could prove useful for the creation of this branch?
We faced the question in Singapore of how to establish a legally independent unit and coordinate it with ETH. This experience will undoubtedly be helpful, although it isn’t directly transferable as Singapore is shaped by the Anglo-American legal system. We have seen how important the management structure is. The term of office limited to three years, in combination with a Managing Director who guarantees consistency, has proved very successful. With the dual hub system we have found a way of coordinating research on a topic between two locations. As the last parallel, I’d like to mention dialogue and exchange: we’re also united with other globally leading universities on one campus in Singapore.
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