In response to the call to contribute to the dialogue initiated by the Committee on The Future Economy (CFE), SMU has held a series of engagement sessions with faculty and staff to brainstorm and propose recommendations to add to the government’s deliberations on strategies for the next stage of Singapore’s economic growth.

Professor Arnoud De Meyer, President of SMU said “SMU has a role to play in the area of future jobs and skills.”

“With the pace at which jobs change in the new economy, employees require a good balance of job-specific skills as well as more universal skills such as pattern recognition, strategy, communications and problem solving.”

He added “SMU’s dynamic curriculum emphasises developing critical skills such as these. Our new collaborative, experiential SMU-X courses bring students into contact with industry partners to work together as cross-disciplinary teams in solving real-world problems. This helps our students develop functional skills and market expertise to in addition to applying their acquired domain knowledge. Most important of all, they develop soft skills and the ability to adapt to whatever is required for the jobs of Singapore’s future economy.”

The SMU engagement sessions discussed future scenarios as well as practical challenges in view of Singapore’s existing economic and social structures. 

Through the leadership of SMU Provost, Professor Lily Kong, faculty and senior staff produced various recommendations on five key areas namely Corporate Capabilities and Innovation, Future Growth Industries & Markets, Future of Connectivity, Future City and Future Jobs and Skills. These recommendations were put together in a paper titled “Contributions to the Committee on the Future Economy”.

In the same vein as the efforts spearheaded by the CFE, the engagement process at SMU was an inclusive one. An open invitation was made to all faculty and staff who were interested to attend the engagement sessions. In addition, specific SMU members who have deep content knowledge of the five areas (through research, education or practice) were specially invited to participate and contribute their thoughts and expertise. The draft of the paper was shared with SMU’s Board of Trustees, whose comments helped to refine and finalise the draft.

Click below for details on the strategies and recommendations proposed in the SMU paper " Contributions to the Committee on the Future Economy".