From January next year, PhD students from NTU and SMU will be able to enrol for postgraduate courses in both universities. Under the new NTU-SMU PhD Student Exchange Programme, eligible PhD students from NTU and SMU can attend classes at the other university, the first such graduate academic programme tie-up between the two universities. NTU President Professor Subra Suresh and SMU President Professor Lily Kong inked the three-year agreement yesterday at a signing ceremony. Prof Kong said, “Increasingly, societal challenges have become multi-dimensional, and solutions are often to be found at the intersections of different disciplines. This programme allows students from both universities to take up a wider range of elective courses at the host university and gain from the expanded teaching resources. We envisage this partnership could become a platform for disciplinary or even interdisciplinary collaborations between the two universities.” Prof Kong added, “As a specialist university, SMU offers deep expertise in the disciplines of social sciences, management and computing which NTU doctoral students could leverage to advance their research.”