Newswise — Singapore, 10 May 2013 – The Faculty of Science at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has received a generous gift of S$1 million from Singapore Exchange Catalist-listed developer SingHaiyi Group Limited and its parent company, privately held Haiyi Holdings Pte Ltd, to boost life sciences research and education.
“The National University of Singapore is recognised as a leading academic institution globally. This gift – our first to NUS – will help advance life sciences research which can have positive far-reaching consequences beyond Singapore,” Mr Neil Bush said on behalf of the two donor companies. Mr Bush is a well-known Texas-based businessman who is also son and brother to two U.S. Presidents. He is a Non-Executive Director and Non-Executive Chairman of SingHaiyi, which is developing several public and private housing residential projects in Singapore.
Professor Andrew Wee, Dean of the Faculty of Science at NUS, said, “We are extremely grateful to SingHaiyi and Haiyi Holdings for the generous gift to advance research and education of life sciences at NUS. The Department of Biological Sciences has a strong global reputation, and this gift presented by Mr Neil Bush on behalf of both companies will help advance our current research programmes and groom the next generation of life sciences researchers whose work will benefit Singapore, the region and beyond.”
The gift will attract the prevailing matching grant from the Singapore Government. A portion of the gift will be used to fund scholarships for some 50 graduate students at the Department of Biological Sciences over a period of two to three years, starting August 2013. The gift will also be endowed to provide funding for up to 150 undergraduates who are pursuing a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Life Sciences annually, for their research projects starting 2014.
Part of the gift will also support the Xiamen Winter Symposium, an annual life sciences conference jointly organised by the NUS Department of Biological Sciences and Xiamen University. This conference was started in 2011 by NUS, Xiamen University and Tsinghua University as a platform to promote research of life sciences.
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