At the time when in most countries, including USA, funding organizations are looking for return on investments in short periods, Singapore seems to be adopting a different approach. They are going to invest 3% of their GNP on research. More interestingly, they are building these Research Centers of Excellence in which the goal is to do fundamental research of highest quality that will result in long term benefit to the country. They are trying to bring top quality researchers from different countries together in SIngapore to build such labs. The amount of funding for these centers — S$30M/year or total S$150M (approximately US $115M). Very impressive.
While talking with some senior people in SIngapore, it became clear that the approach adopted by Singapore shows that this country does think seriously about its future and act accordingly.