NTU Singapore wins top accolade at Times Higher Education Awards Asia

For its digital transformation and administrative reforms that aided the university’s timely Covid-19 response, as well as its bold and powerful commitment to a sustainable future, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) was named the Leadership and Management Team of the Year, the top honour at this year’s Times Higher Education Awards Asia.

The winners were announced at a ceremony in Nagoya, Japan, yesterday. In its fourth edition, this year’s Asia awards received nearly 500 submissions from 22 countries. NTU Singapore is among the 10 winners selected from a pool of 80 finalists across 10 categories.

Commending NTU for its “outstanding rate and quality of development in recent years”, the judges said the university has become “one of the global leaders” in the education sector. “NTU clearly showed that it is reflexively innovating in many areas. The pandemic has been handled well, and the innovations in teaching and learning are impressive,” they added.

NTU President Professor Subra Suresh said: “There were nearly 500 international candidates for this year’s awards, and NTU’s selection for this recognition shows the highest esteem in which the University’s leadership team effort is held internationally … I am enormously proud of what the team has done over the past several years and continues to do to advance the University. It is heartening to note that this team effort is being noticed by influential entities outside of Singapore and recognised with top honours.”

In 2017, NTU began modernising its administrative capabilities and infrastructure through digitising teaching pedagogies and driving operational efficiencies. This led to improved organisational effectiveness, better use of technology to enhance learning and collaboration, and more teamwork and consultation in the leadership team.

As a result, NTU was able to respond rapidly during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing the university to prioritise the safety and wellbeing of 40,000 students and employees while ensuring learning and business continuity.

Our faculty and academic units rose to the occasion, embracing new challenges excelling in their work. The pioneering research and innovation of NTU faculty in both academic units and research centres in the area of sustainability have enabled NTU to define ambitious plans in its NTU 2025 Strategic Plan, by translating scientific discoveries into practice at scale to benefit society.

Last year, NTU announced a new Sustainability Manifesto to guide its efforts over the next 15 years and became the first university in the world to issue a sustainability-linked bond under a S$1 billion (£564 million) medium-term note programme.

NTU Senior Vice-President (Administration) Tan Aik Na said: “Change is hard enough during ‘normal times’, so we should be very proud that we managed to reinvent ourselves, bring best-in-class innovative solutions to NTU, and take great care of the campus community through an unprecedented time in the history of humanity – the COVID19 pandemic. This award would not have been possible without the dedicated effort and contribution of everyone in the team.”

NTU was also a shortlisted finalist in the Teaching and Learning Strategy of the Year category this year.