Speech by Minister Chee Hong Tat at the Launch of the National Institute for Marine and Ocean Sciences (NIMOS)

Mr Hsieh Fu Hua
Chairman, Board of Trustees, NUS

Professor Koh Lian Pin
Vice-President, Sustainability and Resilience, NUS

Professor Lim Kah Leong
Associate Vice-President, Biomedical and Life Sciences, NTU

Dr Tan Puay Yok
CEO, National Parks Board

Professor Selina Stead
CEO, Australian Institute of Marine Science

Associate Professor Huang Danwei
Centre Director of National Institute for Marine and Ocean Sciences (NIMOS)

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

Introduction

A very good morning to all. Happy to join everyone here today at NUS Sustainability CONNECT.
Over the years, NUS has continued to grow Sustainability CONNECT. This is its flagship sustainability festival, bringing together researchers, industry, government and the wider community to showcase sustainability research and innovation, and to build new partnerships. I would like to commend NUS for creating this very important platform to advance our sustainability efforts.

Today, we mark an important milestone in Singapore's marine science journey, with the launch of the National Institute for Marine and Ocean Sciences, or NIMOS. NIMOS will serve as a new national platform that will bring together our Institutes of Higher Learning, our researchers, and our students, combining their expertise across different disciplines in marine and ocean sciences.

Through NIMOS, we will strengthen our local marine science capabilities and deepen our understanding of Singapore's marine environment, so that we can better protect and sustainably manage the waters that surround us.

Why Stronger Marine Science Capabilities Matter

Singapore is a land-scarce nation, but the pressures on space do not stop at our shoreline. The waters around Singapore are limited too. Yet, they support many important uses - from our port and maritime economy, to food and energy security, biodiversity, heritage and recreation.

As a small island state, balancing different needs is not easy. We must continue to plan well ahead to meet future strategic and economic needs. At the same time, we must ensure that nature remains an integral part of Singapore by safeguarding biodiversity, strengthening our climate resilience, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of our marine environment. We need good science to help us make good decisions.

One example is the new western island which PM announced at the National Day Rally. A project of this scale is complex and technically challenging. We are currently studying and working out the details in consultation with stakeholders, including the reclamation profile, the land use plans, the construction methods, and the timeline. These details have not been firmed up.

It is important for Singapore to plan ahead for our future strategic national needs. At the same time, we recognise that the area is rich in biodiversity. I think members of the marine research and conservation community would agree with me that this is something that we need to do our best to preserve as much as possible, to minimise the impact as far as we can. I want to thank members of the marine research and conservation community for reaching out to share information on the ecological significance of the western islands and surrounding waters, and for offering useful suggestions on how we could shape our development plans.

We will study the ecological impact carefully, and we will engage our stakeholders early. Detailed technical studies will be conducted to inform development plans, including feasibility studies, site investigations and surveys, as well as engineering and environmental studies. These will help us better understand the development possibilities and the impact on areas like geology, hydrology and biodiversity, as well as develop mitigation measures, when necessary.

Building On Singapore's Marine Science Journey Together

NIMOS can help us to make good decisions supported by science. By continuing to develop strong marine science capabilities locally, and bringing together expertise across different disciplines, we can deepen our understanding of the marine environment, assess the choices and trade-offs before us, and make informed decisions about how we want to use our limited marine space.

In building up these capabilities, we are not starting from scratch. Singapore already has a long history of marine scientific research, with strong foundations that we can build on.

In fact, the first scientifically described species from Singapore was a marine species - the iconic Neptune's Cup Sponge, first published in 1820, just one year after the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles. For more than a century, the Neptune's Cup Sponge was thought to have disappeared from our waters, before it was rediscovered in Singapore in 2011.

Over the decades, Singapore has steadily strengthened our marine science capabilities through different national research efforts, covering areas such as coastal resources, marine biodiversity, climate change, and coastal protection.

These include the ASEAN-Australia Living Coastal Resources programme, the Marine Science Research and Development Programme, the Marine Climate Change Science Programme, and more recently, the Coastal Protection and Flood Management Research Programme.

These sustained investments have produced internationally recognised research and helped to build a strong marine science community in Singapore.

NIMOS will build on these strong foundations and bring together our existing capabilities and expertise on a stronger national platform, so that we can take our marine science efforts further.

Through NIMOS, we will work closely with research partners and domain experts to continue building up the scientific capabilities needed to study and monitor our marine environment, and develop strategies to strengthen resilience and restore degraded areas.

NIMOS: Strengthening Singapore's National Marine Science Capabilities

NIMOS is established by NParks in partnership with NUS, with NTU as its first Partner Institute, and the St John's Island National Marine Laboratory as a key national facility.

The Government has committed $60 million in research funding to NIMOS, to further strengthen Singapore's marine science capabilities and support the next phase of our marine science research efforts.

As Singapore's national platform for marine science research, NIMOS will bring together expertise across oceanography, biodiversity, ecology, engineering and data science domains to deepen our understanding of Singapore's marine environment, support science-based management, and translate research into practical solutions.

NIMOS will adopt a systems-level, whole-of-coast approach. By looking at these interconnections, we can better understand the cumulative effects of climate change, human activity and other pressures on our marine environment over time.

NIMOS will focus on two key areas.

First, we want to strengthen our understanding of Singapore's coastal and marine ecosystems, and how they are changing in response to climate change and human activity. This will help us develop more targeted and effective management and conservation strategies to strengthen the resilience of our marine ecosystems. It will also help us develop strategies to restore degraded areas and enhance our coastal resilience.

Second, we want to develop interdisciplinary solutions that support the sustainable management and responsible use of Singapore's coastal and marine resources. This means translating research into practical solutions and technologies that will allow us to use our coastal and marine resources sustainably, while protecting the ecological resilience of our marine environment.

Building Capabilities for the Future

Beyond these intended research outcomes, NIMOS will also invest in the next generation of marine scientists through PhD scholarships, and provide opportunities for local research scientists, engineers and postgraduate students to participate in research projects.

As the challenges facing our marine environment become increasingly complex, it is important that we build a strong pipeline of local marine science talent, to ensure that Singapore continues to have the expertise and capabilities to understand these challenges and to respond to them.

Marine challenges do not stop at national boundaries. NIMOS will strengthen our regional and international collaborations by working with leading institutions such as the Australian Institute of Marine Science to accelerate knowledge exchange, to build up our local capabilities, and contribute to the wider global marine science community.

On this note, I would like to warmly welcome Professor Selina Stead, CEO of the Australian Institute of Marine Science. We look forward to hearing her perspectives on how we can strengthen international collaboration and work together to address the marine challenges that we collectively face.

Call to Action

Building strong marine science capabilities is a collective effort. No single institution or community can achieve this. We need researchers, government agencies and other partners to bring together our different areas of expertise, our resources, and work towards common goals.

I would like to encourage our research community and government agencies to make full use of NIMOS as a shared platform - to exchange knowledge and data, to collaborate across disciplines, and to pursue research that addresses Singapore's evolving marine challenges.

Our efforts should go beyond advancing knowledge and understanding. We have to translate good science into practical solutions that can make a difference to society and the environment. As I mentioned earlier, we also need good science to help us to make good decisions.

To our early-career researchers and students, I hope NIMOS will provide you with more opportunities to deepen your expertise, work across disciplines, and contribute to shaping the next chapter of marine science in Singapore.

I am confident that NIMOS will be a trusted platform where researchers, government agencies, and our partners can come together to pursue shared research goals, advance good science, and translate science into practical solutions.

Closing

To conclude, the waters around Singapore have always been important to our development as a nation. How we understand, protect and manage them will become even more important in the decades ahead, as the demands on our limited marine space continue to grow.

Our investments in marine science today are therefore investments in Singapore's future. The better we understand our marine environment, the better equipped we will be to make sound decisions about its future.

Through NIMOS and our continued partnerships, I am confident that we can deepen our scientific capabilities, nurture the next generation of marine scientists, and build the knowledge that we need to manage Singapore's marine environment carefully and responsibly for many years to come.

I would like to congratulate NUS, NParks and all our partners on the launch of NIMOS. I wish the Institute every success in advancing marine science and contributing to Singapore's future.

Thank you.