In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the «MERLION» programme, lepetitjounal.com Singapore Edition, French media, will partner the Institut Français Singapour to offer a monthly portrait of researchers and projects collaborations representing French scientific excellence in Singapore and the world.

Interview with Dr Ning Yan, heads the Lab for Green Catalysis in the Dpt of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering of NUS here

Interview with Christian Miniatura, Research Director at CNRS here

The «MERLION» programme is a joint franco-singaporean collaboration. Launched and managed by the Science Section of the French Embassy in Singapore, the programme initiates and encourages scientific exchanges between laboratories in both countries through the funding of researcher mobility. Since its creation, «MERLION» has funded 180 projects.

The «MERLION» programme – supporting the mobility of researchers

[...] The «MERLION» programme is one of 67 bilateral programmes that support the mobility of researchers, which together make up the Hubert Curien Partnerships (PHC), named in honour of the French crystallographer physicist, justly considered the father of the European space programme. The PHC covers all scientific domains, including the social sciences and is a preferential instrument used in scientific collaboration with France’s partners.

[...] The programme finances the travel of researchers and Ph.D students between France and Singapore, in the framework of research projects that involve at least one French and Singaporean laboratory.

[...] «MERLION» like the other PHC programmes, is funded equally by France (Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the MESR) and its foreign partners. In Singapore’s case, the various institutions co-finance the projects in which their research teams are involved. France is pleased to count on numerous academic and research institutions partners in Singapore, among them: the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) with 40% of the projects, followed by the National University of Singapore (NUS) with 30%, and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) with 20%, and finally the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) and the Singapore Management University (SMU) which together represent 10% of the collaborations.

Original article written and released in French by Cécile BROSOLO (www.lepetitjournal.com/singapour), march 22, 2016, translated by Institut Français Singapore. Source here