New joint PhD program in Chemical Engineering created

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the National University of Singapore signed an agreement February third creating a joint PhD program in chemical engineering. Illinois Provost Richard Herman's remarks at the signing ceremony underscore the importance of international collaborations to prepare students for an increasingly globalized world.

Remarks on Signing a Memorandum of Agreement Creating
a Joint Ph.D. Program in Chemical Engineering Offered by
the National University of Singapore and
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Provost Richard Herman
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

It is a great pleasure to finalize today the agreement creating a program of study leading to the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Chemical Engineering offered jointly by the National University of Singapore and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

This new joint program is the result of a close collaboration between the NUS Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Illinois Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. The collaboration began in 1997 when these two leading departments in their fields began to realize their common interests and set about to explore ways in which they might cooperate in teaching and research. From the beginning, discussions about forms of collaboration were based on the principle that the two departments, and their institutions, would be full and equal partners in a new, cross-Pacific venture to better prepare students for work in the increasingly global chemical industry.

In order to make the collaboration a reality, a partnership was formed involving four different groups and institutions: the two universities, the Singapore Economic Development Board, and the corporate partners who committed to work with the universities in educating the next generation of leaders in the chemical process industry. The support of each of these groups has been essential to bringing us to the innovative next step we take today.

The NUS-Illinois collaboration first took the form of a joint program of study leading to the degree of Master of Science in Chemical Engineering. The first group of students was admitted to this program in 1998-99. The program is designed to give students an international experience to prepare them for participating in the global nature of the world's economy while providing them a solid formal education in chemical engineering. The students participate in two extended industrial internship experiences and two semesters of formal course work, split equally between NUS and Singapore corporate sites and Illinois and US corporate sites. The joint master's program has already achieved a very high level of success. The program attracts exceptionally talented students, and the quality of education and breadth of cultural experience they receive place them in high demand upon graduation.

Because of the success of the master's program, today we take the next step: creation of a joint Ph.D. program. This new program is closely modeled along the lines of the master's program, with students taking formal course work at both universities, and students' research will be supervised by joint teams of researchers drawn from both universities. Each of the two departments has great strengths, and combining the two will, we believe, result in a quality of education unmatched in this field anywhere, that produces graduates who are superbly prepared to take leading roles in the future development of the chemical process industry, especially in the Pacific rim. We are excited by the possibilities, and we look forward to joining with NUS to take the lead in advanced international education in this important area.

We also look forward to the further development of collaborations and mutual engagement between our two universities that will be an inevitable result of the new joint Ph.D. program. We are honored to deepen our relationship with a university of the quality, stature, and renown of NUS, and we believe that both universities will be strengthened in important ways by this growing partnership.

Today's agreement is a particularly good illustration of the kinds of collaborations among the world's universities that will best support advances in science and other fields in our increasingly interconnected world. Our new joint program is, we think, a good model for such relationships, and in the years ahead we expect such models to become quite common. Our institutions, our students, and our societies will derive great benefits from these relationships. We take pride in joining with NUS to create the path ahead.

In closing, I want to thank all of those who have worked so hard to bring us to this point, those at Illinois and our counterparts at NUS. This is a historic moment for our institutions and for the future of international academic collaborations, and I congratulate all who have played a part in making it a reality.