A special issue of Nature, the influential scientific journal, recently highlighted Singapore's lead over the United States and the United Kingdom in terms of the average scholarly impact of their publications.

The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), National University of Singapore (NUS) and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) were featured. This lead is attributed to our high rates of international collaborations, in line with our positioning in Asia. It is a remarkable achievement, given the relative nascence of research in Singapore and our deliberate and mission-oriented approach to research and development (R&D) compared to the UK and US.