At the intersection of interdisciplinary research

By Jill Arul

SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer – From working with industry partners to collaborating with colleagues across universities and countries – collaboration is key for many research institutes and projects. It is particularly important when it comes to major challenges like sustainability and future communications that impact society in many different ways. To truly tackle multi-faceted problems, scientists must be able to share data, resources and ideas.

In the spirit of collaboration, as two of Singapore’s niche universities, the Singapore Management University (SMU) and the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) came together in a joint workshop to encourage engagement and partnership. Held on 7 December 2022, the workshop saw leaders from each university – Professor Archan Misra, SMU Vice Provost for Research and Professor Chua Chee Kai, SUTD Associate Provost for Research – as well as 22 researchers from a diverse range of fields partake in fruitful discussions to spark valuable relationships.

“Building meaningful collaborations take time, and these efforts are not about trying to cobble together quick-reaction teams to meet a proposal deadline,” shared Professor Misra. “[This workshop] is about building and nurturing relationships and taking them progressively to the logical next levels as opportunities present themselves.”

Many diverse hands, make great work

To focus the discussion, participants were split into two rooms – one on urban sustainability and climate change, and the other on 6G and augmented reality. In the spirit of open collaboration, each researcher spent a few minutes presenting their current research, explaining their project goals and defining the type of partners they are looking to work with in future projects.

The workshop saw participants from diverse backgrounds looking to engage in inter-disciplinary work. For example, SMU’s Associate Professor of Environmental History Fiona Williamson described her work as a historian. She studies the history of science and the intersection of land-use change, weather, food security and other factors affecting vulnerability and sustainability. Associate Professor of Law Liu Nengye from SMU is similarly interested in environmental sustainability but contributes to the effort with his legal expertise. His work includes exploring areas like pollution and shipping, sea level rise and coastal resilience. On the other side of the coin, SUTD’s Associate Professor of Engineering Systems Lynette Cheah works on energy and environmental life cycle assessments of transportation and other urban systems.

In small groups, participants were given prompts to discuss as they built relationships and understood one another’s work in more depth.

Each group was then split once more into breakout rooms to identify and discuss potential research questions and brainstorm on how they could leverage each of their expertise to work together. The first urban sustainability group began by trying to define sustainability and how it can be accomplished.

They came to the conclusion that currently, sustainability – maintaining the same resource availability and standard of living for future generations – is no longer enough. After some discussion, the group of six concluded that current resources are not sufficient, and individuals must work towards improving the situation for the future. “We don’t actually want to be sustainable, we want to be better than sustainable” said Professor Williamson. “We want to improve the future, not maintain the status quo.”

The group, that included a historian, a legal expert, an economist, an architect, a sociologist and an urban planner, also discussed the possibility of designing policies and legislation to ensure resilience. They agreed that creating greener systems is the key to a sustainable future. “It seems to me that, right now, it comes down to consumers choosing to recycle or choosing to take action,” shared Assistant Professor Nilanjan Raghunath from SUTD’s Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) cluster. “I think a systems approach is very important because there are so many other factors affecting us. If the companies producing our products were thinking about recycling and waste treatment, the process could be truly circular.”

As they discussed potential solutions, they pointed out that Singapore is an excellent place to discuss such issues and test-bed ideas. As a city-state with a small amount of land and a small population, solutions could be explored and tested to be applied in other bustling cities overseas.

Planting seeds for successful partnerships

After spending time in fruitful discussions, the groups returned to present their ideas to all attendees.

Representatives from each group shared their discussions and ideas with all attendees.

One of the groups discussing 6G and augmented reality clearly explained 6G as the next generation of wireless technology. In particular, their representative explained that 6G includes additional sensing capabilities compared to 5G technologies. Such sensing capabilities could come in the form of visual cues, or even identifying areas with better or worse connectivity. As a team primarily made up of technologists, they proposed ideas like drones that follow individuals and evaluate internet connectivity in their vicinity. These drones could provide connectivity in areas where it is weak and enable constant connection.

“I think interdisciplinarity is the only way to resolve big issues,” said Professor Williamson. “As a historian, I can’t come up with all the answers – but if I work with people from different fields, maybe between us we can come up with a holistic approach.”

“With events like this, we are put in a room with people who we might not normally be comfortable talking to. It forces us to engage with one another and enables us to start these conversations.” 

Such collaborative workshops and networking events offer researchers the opportunity to meet and share ideas with colleagues from different institutions and fields – resulting in a more robust local research ecosystem.

“To overcome the real-world challenges and inspire new discoveries, working together becomes a critical component in designing holistic solutions and transcending the boundaries in research. We look forward to fostering deeper collaborations between SMU and SUTD,” said Professor Chua Chee Kai, Associate Provost for Research at SUTD.

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The full list of participants who attended the workshop held in SMU is as follows:

Theme 1: Urban Sustainability and Climate Change

SMU Participants

1. Fiona WILLIAMSON, College of Integrative Studies, SMU Academic Lead (Faculty webpage)
2. LIU Nengye, Yong Pung How School of Law (Faculty webpage)
3. PHANG Sock Yong, School of Economics (Faculty webpage)
4. Ishani MUKHERJEE, School of Social Sciences (Faculty webpage)
5. Onur BOYABATLI, Lee Kong Chian School of Business (Faculty webpage)
6. LIM Yun Fong, Lee Kong Chian School of Business (Faculty Webpage)

SUTD Participants

1. Lynette CHEAH, Engineering System and Design (ESD), SUTD Academic Lead (Faculty Webpage)
2. Jin MURAKAMI, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) (Faculty Webpage)
3. Lyle FEARNLEY, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) (Faculty Webpage)
4. Stylianos DRITSAS, Architecture and Sustainable Design (ASD) (Faculty Webpage)
5. Nilanjan RAGHUNATH, Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (HASS) (Faculty Webpage)
6. Eva CASTRO, Architecture and Sustainable Design (ASD) (Faculty Webpage)
7. DUAN Lingjie, Engineering System and Design (ESD) (Faculty Webpage)

Theme 2: 6G and Augmented Reality

SMU Participants

1. Anthony TANG, School of Computing and Information Systems, SMU Academic Lead (Faculty webpage)
2. MA Dong, School of Computing and Information Systems (Faculty webpage)
3. Thivya KANDAPPU, School of Computing and Information Systems (Faculty webpage)
4. WANG Yong, School of Computing and Information Systems (Faculty webpage)
5. Sandeep R. CHANDUKALA, Lee Kong Chian School of Business (Faculty webpage)

SUTD Participants

1. Sam Condrad JOYCE, Architecture and Sustainable Design (ASD), SUTD Academic Lead (Faculty Webpage)
2. JIANG Wenchao, Information System Technology and Design (ISTD) (Faculty Webpage)
3. FOONG Shaohui, Engineering Product Development (EPD) (Faculty Webpage)
4. ANG Yee Sin, Science, Mathematics and Technology (SMT) (Faculty Webpage)

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