NUS's University Town Now Officially Open

Good to see NUS's University Town officially open.  When I was working for the Alumni Office it was still in the design stage.
The idea of a cohort or two living and studying on site is a good one; building a sense of community beyond the usual halls of residence.

NUS is Asia's Number One

Shaw Foundation Alumni House

I was delighted to learn that the National University of Singapore (NUS) has risen in the latest global university rankings and is now Asia's #1 university.

It is a credit to the strategy put in place by the current and former Vice Chancellor and their respective teams.  The investment in top quality professorial staff and research has sure paid dividends; it's really about academic rigour and gravitas.  Having the support and expectations of government is also a prime motivation and reason for the rise in recent years.

NUS's elevation augers well for Singapore's future as its educated population are its greatest asset.

Well done NUS and I retain fond memories of my friends and former colleagues at NUS's Alumni office. (pictured above).

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Thoughts On Durian Wine

I was always brought up the belief that wine was "fruit of the vine", although clearly now it "grows on trees".  I can't really comment on the pros and cons of a good vintage, durian wine as I have yet to sample it.

Fruit wines though are hardly a new idea and I can't see why durian would be any different.  The British have a long tradition of making fruit wines and I remember as a youngster trying to make some out of plums (we had a tree at the time that was over-burdened with fruit).

Despite the fact of my mother gives me generous support the result was a syrupy mess that was completely undrinkable.  The pet dog was kennelled in the same shed and whined to get out - that's how bad the smell of the vintage actually was!

In New Zealand there is a South Canterbury company called Barkers and although they are today better known for their fruit jams, chutneys and syrups, it is fruit wine that made them a national icon.

Blackcurrants grow very well in Canterbury and it was this fruit that Barkers has been exploiting.  My grandparents who lived in Dyers Pass Road in the Port Hills of Christchurch had a large patch of blackcurrant bushes and I have fond memoires of fresh blackcurrant jam during my infrequent visits from the North Island.

So will the NUS graduates students who created durian wine no branch out and produce a mangosteen cuvee? One would hope they give it a try.

And A River Runs Through It

It is only fitting that a country that relies so much on its rivers and waterways should have a new exhibit -  the River Safari.


Due to open in a week's time, the River Safari will be a companion attraction to the much-loved Night Safari and will link it with the Singapore Zoo.  There are eight distinctive freshwater habits portrayed in 69 exhibits; all of which the public will be able to enjoy.

The undoubted hit in the new Safari will be the Giant Panda Forest, the largest panda exhibit in South East Asia.  It features the giant pandas Kai Kai and Jia Jia which were gifted by China to Singapore.

Quite apart from the tourist potential I can't help but think what a wonderful educational resource this will be.  If you consider the nature exhibits that Singapore now has in total, the younger generations should be well attuned to the natural environment by the time they reach adulthood; Gardens By The Bay, the River and Nights Safaris, S.E.A Aquarium in Sentosa, Jurong Bird Park, the Singapore Botanic Gardens and the various marine and terrestrial ecology walks that dot the Island.

Add to this the new  Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum that is being built at NUS.  Visitors and students will be able to see 800,000 South East Asian specimens and the nearly complete fossils of three giant dinosaurs.

All in all a natural history "feast" for nature lovers and without doubt a magnet for eco-tourists.  And this market segment is significant.  As far back as 1993 the WTO estimated that nature tourism generated 7% of all international travel expenditure. By 1998 the same organisation estimated that ecotourism and all nature-related forms of tourism accounted for approximately 20 percent of total international travel and by the year 2020 their would be 1.6 billion international travellers. International tourist arrivals surpassed 1 billion (1.035 billion) for the first time in history in 2012.

Coupled with Singapore's Eco-approach to building and public spaces sees the country rapidly becoming the globe's Green Magnet, attracting eco-tourists from far and wide.

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Going Up, Going Down

Image via WikipediaThe annual QS University rankings have been released; a time when most tertiary institutions prepare their PR releases in advance and hope for the best.

This year as in previous years no university from Asia or Oceania ranked in the top twenty.  The first Asian institution to score is the University of Hong Kong at #22, followed by its Tokyo equivalent at #25.

The first entry for Oceania is the Australia National University which follows on from Tokyo at #26.

Congratulations to my former employer NUS which has jumped up to 28th. They must be very pleased that their investment in research and quality staff is paying off.

By comparison New Zealand's top university, the  University of Auckland, has fallen14 places to 82. Not exactly a trend to crow about.

The rankings are based on research, teaching, employability and internationalisation.

Related articles

• Cambridge tops league table of world's best universities (guardian.co.uk)
• 26 county universities rank higher than six county ones (politics.ie)
• Well Done, University of Malaya (dinmerican.wordpress.com)