Good governance has been an increasingly important topic both in research and policy since the early 2000s, reinforced by the rise of governance challenges that are brought about by aging population, economic downturn, climate change, deglobalization, regional conflicts, and the global pandemic. Since the end of 2019, the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the topic of good governance into much sharper focus, both as a matter of policy and societal interest.
Indeed, in the last two years since the pandemic began, there has been overwhelming evidence that countries with apparently stable governance systems (e.g. clearly communicated and systematically planned public health policy protocols with the overall cooperation by various government and non- public stakeholders) have been able to curb the spread of the virus within their borders with lower social and economic costs. On the other hand, countries with relatively poor/weak public health systems are facing difficulties in controlling the multi-waves of COVID-19 due to new variants. Some countries even could not provide adequate quarantine facilities or hospital beds for patients with severe symptoms.
These examples demonstrate that good governance is crucial to the effective functioning of both government institutions and consequently, the life outcomes of its populations (e.g. health standards, access to medical care, economic livelihoods etc.), particularly during global crises like the current global pandemic. Therefore, this pandemic has significantly underscored the importance of good governance in all its forms (e.g. conception, operationalization etc.) in the post-pandemic environment.
Against this backdrop, the 2021 Lien International Conference on Good Governance organised by The Nanyang Centre for Public Administration (NCPA) of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in collaboration with the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS), Civil Service College Singapore and the Stratagem Group, will gather local and international academics, practitioners and researchers to examine major issues in governance, public service delivery and evaluation. The theme this year on “Good Governance in the Post COVID-19 World” is a call for academics and practitioners from various fields and around the world to come together to deliberate how to navigate businesses and society in the new normal as COVID-19 becomes endemic and towards global economic recovery.
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Nanyang Centre for Public Administration (NCPA)
NCPA at NTU is a leading institution in Asia that provides quality education and research as well as to promote good governance in the region and beyond. It is the first higher learning institution in Singapore that is certified by China’s State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs to conduct executive development programmes for Chinese government officials and professionals.
Presently, NCPA offers four graduate programmes, namely the Master of Science in Managerial Economics (Chinese), the Master of Public Administration (English, Chinese), and Master of Social Sciences (China and Global Governance) (English). In addition, it provides Executive Development Programmes with a wide range of theme-based topics including public administration and public policy, urban planning and management, social management, and higher education management and internationalisation. Among its over 17,000 alumni mostly from China, and ASEAN and beyond, many are holding decision-making positions at all levels of government in their countries, including ministerial-level leaders, mayors and heads of organisations. NCPA has received students from all over China and many other parts of the world including Southeast Asian countries, Latin America, Africa, and Europe, etc.
The Lien Ying Chow Legacy Fellowship, established in year 2007, is targeted at outstanding senior government officials and distinguished professionals, as well as academics from Singapore and China. The Fellowship provides a platform for both countries to gain useful insights from each other’s expertise and experience in public administration, corporate governance and management.
NCPA continuously seeks out strategic alliances and collaborations to organise events and conduct research that inform good practices in public and non-profit sectors. It has established solid collaborative networks with world-renowned organisations in public administration. NCPA’s newly established Lien Research Programme on Belt and Road Initiative focuses on policy-oriented research on the BRI from the perspective of Singapore and its role in the initiative.
International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS)
IIAS is an international non-profit organisation headquartered in Brussels (Belgium). Established in 1930, its mission is to:
Every year in late June, the IIAS organises its flagship Congress, gathering more than 300 scholars, students and civil servants in a different region of the world. The IIAS is also a group of several public governance societies contributing to its mission through own events, publications, projects and accreditation services:
Civil Service College (CSC)
CSC Singapore is a statutory board under the Public Service Division with a mission to develop people for a first-class public service. As the public sector’s principal institution for learning, research and staff development, CSC builds strategic capacity in governance, leadership, public administration and management for a networked government in Singapore. For more information, please visit: www.csc.gov.sg
Stratagem Group
Stratagem Group is a strategic business advisory firm providing services in business risk and commercial due diligence, business and competitive intelligence, deal-sourcing, as well as strategic networking and link ups for multinational corporations, government-linked companies, funds and private enterprises. Specializing in the Asia-Pacific region, the company has strong military, private sector and government links, particularly within Southeast Asia and a growing network in China. As part of our network, Strategem Group is also the Secretariat for the Pinnacle Club of ASEAN, a formal association of retired defense and service chiefs in Southeast Asia. For more information on the Stratagem Group, please visit: https://stratagemgroup.com.sg/
Ong Ye Kung is the Minister for Health. He was elected Member of Parliament for Sembawang Group Representation Constituency (GRC) in September 2015, and was re-elected in July 2020 in Sembawang GRC.
He had held the positions of Minister for Transport, Minister for Education, Second Minister for Defence and board member of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. He is also the Chairman of the Chinese Development Assistance Council.
Prior to joining politics, he held various positions in Government, including Chief Executive Officer of the Singapore Workforce Development Agency, and Deputy Chief Negotiator for the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. He served several years in the Labour Movement, as the Deputy Secretary-General of the National Trades Union Congress, and spent some time in the private sector, as the Director of Group Strategy at Keppel Corporation.
Mr Ong graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK) and the Institute of Management Development, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Member (academician) of Chinese Academy of Sciences, a foreign associate of National Academy of Sciences and so on. Director-General of Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Vice President of National Natural Science Foundation of China, Professor of Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. President of Chinese Society of Biotechnology, Vice President of Chinese Medical Association. Professor Gao obtained his DPhil degree from Oxford University, UK and did his postdoc work in both Oxford University and Harvard University (with a brief stay in Calgary University). His researches focus on pathogen microbiology and immunology. His group research is mainly focusing on the enveloped virus entry and release, esp. influenza virus interspecies transmission (host jump), structure-based drug-design and structural immunology, public health policy and global health strategy. He is also interested in virus ecology, esp. the relationship between influenza virus and migratory birds or live poultry markets and the bat-derived virus ecology and molecular biology. He has published lots of refereed papers (Including papers in Cell, Nature, Science, The Lancet, NEJM, PNAS etc.). Gao is a recipient of several international and national awards, including TWAS Medical Prize (2012), Nikkei Asian Prize (Japan 2014), the Gamaleya Medal (Russia 2018), HKU Centennial Distinguished Chinese Scholar (2019) and the Qiu Shi Outstanding Scientist and Outstanding Scientific Research Team Awards (2019).
Born in India, Prof Suresh graduated from high school at 15 and received his Bachelor degree (First Class) with distinction in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Madras. He received a master's degree from Iowa State University and went on to complete his doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT in just two years. Following postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he joined the faculty of engineering at Brown University in 1983. Prof Suresh returned to MIT in 1993 as the R.P. Simmons Professor and served as Head of Department of Materials Science and Engineering from 2000 to 2006. He was Dean of Engineering at MIT from 2007 to 2010. Prof Suresh was appointed by then-US President Barack Obama in 2010 to lead NSF and was unanimously confirmed by the US Senate. He served as President of Carnegie Mellon University from 2013 to 2017.
Prof Suresh holds the distinction of being the only university president elected to all three US national academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and is one of the few elected foreign members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is an elected member of 15 science and/or engineering academies based in the US, China, France, India, Sweden, Germany, Italy and Spain. He is a recipient of 12 honorary doctorates from universities around the world including Zhejiang University, China; Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland; Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; Warwick University, UK; St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Russia; Dartmouth College, USA, and his alma mater, the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. In 2011, Prof Suresh was awarded the Padma Shri, one of the highest civilian honours, by the President of India.
He is the author or co-author of more than 250 research articles in international journals, co-editor of five books, and co-inventor on 25 US and international patent applications. He has written three books and among them, Fatigue of Materials and Thin Film Materials have been translated into Chinese and are used as textbooks for postgraduate students.
Prof Suresh is one of the few elected foreign members in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He was a member of an advisory group to the Governor of Guangdong Province from 2014 to2016, for technology and industry matters. His connections with China go back some 25 years when his book Fatigue of Materials was first translated into Chinese, and he has collaborated in research with various Chinese scientists. Among them was a highly-cited paper on nano-twinned materials published in Science.
Prof Suresh has taught many Chinese students and scholars in the past 30 years. One of his first students, when he was a young assistant professor at Brown University in 1984, was Yang Wei, who went on to become President of Zhejiang University where Prof Suresh received an honorary degree in 2013 - a memorable occasion for him. Prof Yang is now the president of National Natural Sciences Foundation, China's top science agency. Prof Suresh was made an honorary professor at Xi'an Jiaotong University in 2013 and at the University of Science and Technology in 2014.
Mr Laurence Lien is the Co-Founder and CEO of the Asia Philanthropy Circle (APC), Chairman of Lien Foundation the renowned family foundation established in 1980 and Board Member of the Lien Centre for Social Innovation at the Singapore Management University. Mr Lien is also the founder and CEO of Community Foundation of Singapore. He ever served as CEO of the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre in Singapore. Prior to his work in the non-profit sector, Mr Lien served in the Singapore Administrative Service, which forms the top echelon of public service leaders in Singapore. He holds degrees from Oxford University, National University of Singapore and Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was awarded the Eisenhower Fellowship and a Nominated Member of Parliament in Singapore.
Professor Ling San is Deputy President and Provost at NTU Singapore. Currently President’s Chair in Mathematical Sciences, he joined NTU in April 2005 as the Founding Head of the Division of Mathematical Sciences in the School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences (SPMS). He was Chair of SPMS from April 2008 to December 2010, and Dean, College of Science, from August 2011 to December 2017, before being appointed Provost on 1 January 2018. Prior to joining NTU, he spent 13 years at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
Professor Ling’s research interests are in applications of algebra and number theory to combinatorial designs, coding theory, cryptography and sequences. He has published about 220 journal and conference papers and two textbooks, and edited several conference proceedings. His research has clinched more than S$23 million in funding.
A visiting scholar at institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, CNRS, ESSI Sophia Antipolis, INRIA, ENS Lyon, Macquarie University, the Technion, and Hanyang University, he is a recipient of the Singapore Youth Award (Science & Technology) in 2001, National Science Award (Team) in 2003, Service to Education Award from the Singapore Ministry of Education in 2010, Public Administration Medal (Silver) from the President of the Republic of Singapore in 2013, and Fellowship of the Singapore National Academy of Science in 2014. A passionate educator, he has also won numerous teaching excellence awards at both NTU and NUS.
Active in serving the professional community, he is the Vice President of the Singapore National Academy of Science, and has been a Past President of the Southeast Asian Mathematical Society and the Singapore Mathematical Society, and a former member of the Board of Directors of the International Association for Cryptologic Research. He is also on the Management Boards of the Institute for Mathematical Sciences at NUS, and has served as a reviewer for research funding agencies in Singapore and abroad.
He obtained his BA and MA in Mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and has a PhD in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Professor Liu Hong is Executive Director of the Lien Ying Chow Legacy Fellowship. He is the Tan Lark Sye Chair Professor of Public Policy and Global Affairs, School of Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), where he also serves as Director of the Nanyang Centre for Public Administration. Prior to joining NTU in 2010, he taught at the University of Manchester as the Founding Director of the Centre for Chinese Studies and Chair Professor of East Asian Studies. Apart from being the chief editor of Public Governance in Asia (Routledge) and Journal of Chinese Overseas, Professor Liu has published more than 20 books and about 100 articles in academic journals. His most recent publications include The Political Economy of Transnational Governance: China and Southeast Asia in the 21st Century (2022); Research Handbook on the Belt and Road Initiative (co-edited with Joseph Liow and Gong Xue, 2021); and The Political Economy of Regionalism, Trade, and Infrastructure (co-edited with Tan Kong Yam and Lim Guanie, 2021).
RA'ED M. BENSHAMS is the founding DIRECTOR GENERAL of the INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION in Bahrain (BIPA). In close leadership with the family of BIPA, built up BIPA into a partner of choice to develop the government of the Kingdom of Bahrain into high performance with sustainable development. BIPA has developed a wide range of capacity building programs and projects for all strata of public servants. It has also developed key signatory services in consulting and introduced new models and methodologies that contributed create high return of investment for the country.
In 2013 during the llAS/IASIA 2013 Congress, launched a research initiative in the public service as a think tank in the region. DR. BENSHAMS is the president of the MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION RESEARCH (MENAPAR) NETWORK since its establishment in 2014 and was reelected in 2018 after the network was established as an international NGO registered in Belgium with its permanent secretariat in Bahrain. He is also the President of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (llAS) since 2019.
DR. BENSHAMS was a member of the RECRUITMENT OF HIGH OFFICIALS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR COMMITIEE and CHIEF of its TASK FORCE, which was also responsible to nominate & evaluate government employees and officials for the Royal Medals. Additionally, he led several task forces managing the parliamentary and municipality elections held in Bahrain since 2002.
He was decorated with the MEDAL OF HIGHEST LEVEL OF COMPETENCE by HM THE KING for his achievements. He holds a PHD in strategic management & organization behavior from Bradford University, an MSc in Management Information Systems from Leeds University and BSc from King Saud University.
He also occupied key positions in the private and public sector prior to joining BIPA. He was ASSISTANT GENERAL SECRETARY for HR, Finance and Admin Affairs at the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs, DIRECTOR OF STATISTICS at the Central Informatics Organization (iGA) and GENERAL MANAGER of a systems integration company. He is a member of the board in several national and international associations and published chapters in two edited books with numerous conference papers.
Mr. Roger Tan is the Assistant Chief Executive (International) of the Civil Service College (CSC). As the central training institution of the Singapore Government, CSC is entrusted with the role of helping to develop people for a first class public service. The College works closely with central government agencies, as well as public sector organizations, to imbue values, initiate change, strategise and operationalise public sector initiatives. It also partners private sector organisations, the academia and international organisations to exchange best practices and experiences in leadership, policy development, public administration and public reforms. In his current role as ACE (International), Mr. Tan is responsible for managing the external relations of CSC with its international counterparts and partners.
Mr. Tan graduated with a Bachelor of Arts Degree (Honours First Class) in Psychology from Murdoch University, Australia, and attained a Master (with Distinction) in Organisational Psychology from the University of Manchester, UK. Prior to joining the Civil Service College in 2001, Mr. Tan spent more than 9 years working in the Public Service Commission and Public Service Division as a government psychologist handling talent management and development issues within the Singapore Civil Service. For his contributions to Singapore and CSC, he was awarded the National Day Awards - Public Administration Medal (Bronze) in 2006, Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2013, and Long Service Medal in 2016.
Allan Rosenbaum is Professor of Public Administration and Director of the Institute for Public Management and Community Service and the Center for Democracy and Good Governance at Florida International University (FIU) in Miami, Florida. He is currently the national President of the 10,000 member American Society for Public Administration in Washington DC and will serve a two year term as its President from Spring 2021 to Spring 2023.
Rosenbaum came to FIU as Dean of the its School of Public Affairs. Prior to that, he was on the faculties of the Universities of Maryland, Connecticut and Wisconsin and held a research position in the urban studies center at the University of Chicago. He has worked in senior level positions in national, state and local government in the United States and has carried out many international projects for the United Nations, the World Bank, the Swedish International Development Agency and various governments around the world.
He is a past President of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration in Brussels, Belgium. Currently he serves on numerous journal editorial boards and is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He was a member of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration from 2014 to 2018.
Before coming to FIU, Professor Rosenbaum was actively involved in research and consulting activities with the United States government in the areas of higher education, employment and training policy, economic development, elementary and secondary education, social welfare and science and technology policy. More recently, he has written on governance reform, decentralization issues and legislative relations in many countries around the world. He has authored, co-authored or co-edited a number of publications for the United Nations.
Under the rectorship of Associate Professor Gasinee Witoonchart, Thammasat University has truly fulfilled its mission as “The World-class University for the People” by creating impactful social innovations for Thailand and the global communities. The Thammasat Model, a trilateral learning ecosystem in which Thammasat students join hands with resourceful corporates to better the lives of local communities by transforming their business models, earned the EFMD Excellence in Practice Silver Award in 2019. Thammasat is also internationally recognized for its lifelong learning initiatives with the AMBA and BGA Silver Award in 2021. Furthermore, Thammasat University was also the first to provide Thailand with the first field hospital amidst the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. In addition, ThamMask was also invented to be distributed to medical personnel across the country to curb the unexpected demand.
Before becoming the Rector, Gasinee served as the Vice Rector for Planning and Finance, the Vice Rector for Planning and Administration (Rangsit Campus), the Vice Rector for Human Resources, the Acting Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry, and the Dean of Thammasat Business School (TBS), where she taught finance and banking. During her deanship, she put TBS on course for the next level of internationalization. In particular, Gasinee initiated the processes for international accreditation: RICS, EQUIS, and AACSB. To date, TBS is the first and only business school in Thailand to have earned the Triple Crown Status – business schools with accreditations from EQUIS, AACSB, and AMBA.
Educated at Thammasat and the University of Texas at Austin, Gasinee has acquired key training in Education Development (Monash University), Operations Management (National University of Singapore), and Leadership (Thai Capital Market Academy). In addition, Rector Gasinee is on the Board of Directors and the chairman of the audit committee at Bangkok Bank PCL. Notably, she is also the EFMD board of trustee.
Professor Lam Khin Yong guides NTU’s university-wide research and its implementation as the Senior Vice President (Research). He was previously NTU’s Acting Provost (March – December 2017), Chief of Staff (2011 – 2017), Acting CEO of NTU Innovation (2012 – 2013), Associate Provost for Graduate Education & Special Projects (2008 – 2011), and Dean/Chair of the School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering (2006 – 2008).
He is a strong proponent of the Triple Helix Framework as well as research and innovation partnerships involving university, industry and public agencies. Together with his colleagues, he drove many of NTU’s collaborations with major industry and academic partners, including the setting up of corporate labs and joint labs on campus with Continental, HP Inc, Singtel, Surbana Jurong as well as the NTU-Alibaba Joint Research Institute and the Sino-Singapore International Joint Research Institute (SSIJRI).
In his previous role as Chief of Staff, he oversaw the operations of the President’s Office. As Associate Provost, he played a strategic role in growing NTU’s graduate and research programmes and spearheaded joint research programmes with top universities globally, including the Technical University of Munich, the University of Cambridge and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has also contributed to NTU’s world-class positioning within the National Research Foundation’s Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise (CREATE) initiative since 2007.
Before joining NTU, he was the Founding Director of the NUS Centre for Computational Mechanics and the NUS-MINDEF Underwater Shock Laboratory, Programme Director of the IHPC-MINDEF High Performance Computing Centre, Founding Executive Director of the Institute of High Performance Computing and Founding Executive Director of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Graduate Academy.
In addition, he held directorship positions in the then NSTB and A*STAR Holding companies as Director of ETPL Investment and KRDL Holdings. Professor Lam was also the Technical Advisor to the Executive Chairman of ETPL, Programme Advisor for the High Performance Computation Programme of the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) and Deputy Director of SMA. He worked with the MD of A*STAR and Executive Chairman of ETPL to set up the Managing Director Office and ETPL at A*STAR.
In 2017, Professor Lam was awarded the French National Order of the Legion of Honour (Chevalier) for advancing research between Singapore and France. Other accolades include the Honorary Doctorate from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the Honorary Professorship Diploma award, the highest honour and recognition from Lomonosov Moscow State University, and the Shandong University Honorary Professorship in recognition of his research achievements and the links that he had established with the industry.
In 2018, he received the prestigious President’s Science and Technology Medal, which is awarded to outstanding individuals who have made a distinguished contribution to the development of Singapore through the promotion and management of R&D. He had also received the Singapore Distinguished Service Award from the National Supercomputing Centre Singapore (NSCC Singapore) for his long-term service and contributions to HPC. He was also the first academic to lead a research team to win the national Defence Technology Prize.
He chairs various steering and governance committees, which include the HP-NTU Corporate Lab Governing Board, among others. He obtained his BSc with First Class Honours in Mechanical Engineering from Imperial College London and his Master’s and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr Ang is an Adjunct Professor in Nanyang Technological University and Singapore University of Social Sciences. He specialises in social management, public administration, and leadership.
He is also the Deputy Secretary of MCCY leading the ministry’s efforts in Singapore Cares, the national movement to foster a more caring, compassionate and inclusive society. He was previously appointed as Commissioner of Charities (COC) and Executive Director of the Registry of Co-operative Societies and Mutual Benefit Organisations (RCS).
Prior to these appointments, Dr Ang has served in the Public Service for more than 30 years. In addition to enhancing Singapore’s ability in curbing emerging threats, he forged strategic international partnerships for the Singapore Police Force. Dr Ang also led the Health Promotion Board in championing healthy living as a pervasive lifestyle and social movement during his time as the Chief Executive Officer. As the Chief Executive Director of People’s Association (PA), he transformed PA to a resident-centric organisation, playing an invaluable role in strengthening Singapore’s social fabric.
Dr Ang obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from Nanyang Technological University in 2016. He has a Master of Business Studies MBS, 1st Class Hons) from Massey University, and a Master of Science in Management of Technology (MOT) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr Ang has also attended the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. He is a Fellow Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants and a Fellow with the Chartered Secretaries Institute of Singapore. He is currently a Fellow at the Civil Service College.
Prof Joseph Chinyong Liow is Dean of College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where he is also Tan Kah Kee Chair in Comparative and International Politics, and Professor and former Dean at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. He held the inaugural Lee Kuan Yew Chair in Southeast Asia Studies at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, where he was also a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program.
Joseph’s research interests encompass Muslim politics and social movements in Southeast Asia and the geopolitics and geoeconomics of the Asia-Pacific region.
Joseph is the author, co-author, or editor of 14 books including Ambivalent Engagement: The United States and Regional Security in Southeast Asia after the Cold War (Brookings 2017) and Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2016). In addition, his forthcoming books are Movement, Party, Politics: The Role of Tarbiyah and Dakwah in the Evolution of Islamism in Indonesia and Malaysia (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and Dictionary of the Modern Politics of Southeast Asia, fifth edition (Routledge, 2021). A regular columnist for the Straits Times, his commentaries on international affairs have also appeared in New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, National Interest, Nikkei Asian Review, Wall Street Journal, and South China Morning Post. He has testified to the United States Congress, and been invited to deliver a special closed door briefing to the ASEAN Defence Minister’s Meeting. In addition to scholarship and policy analysis, Joseph has also consulted for a wide range of MNCs including Shell, BHP Billiton, Chevron, Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Total, and Statoil. He sits on the board of several peer- reviewed academic and policy journals, is Singapore’s representative on the advisory board of the ASEAN Institute of Peace and Reconciliation (formed under the auspices of the ASEAN Charter), and on the Experts and Eminent Persons Group of the ASEAN Regional Forum. He is also on the board of the Social Science Research Council (Singapore), ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and the National Arts Council.
He holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an MSc in Strategic Studies from the Nanyang Technological University, and a BA (Hons) in Political Science from the University of Madison-Wisconsin.
Dr. Shane Snyder is a Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and is the Executive Director of the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. For over 20 years, Dr. Snyder’s research has focused on water quality, treatment, and sustainability, which resulted in over 300 published manuscripts with nearly 30,000 citations. He serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the American Chemical Society journal, Environmental Science & Technology Water and is a Fellow of the International Water Association. Prof. Snyder was featured among the top 25 leading water researchers globally by Lux Research and was recently featured as one of the top scientists in the field of Environmental Engineering (#55 out of 42,482) in a report by Stanford University. Professor Snyder was awarded the Dr. Pankaj Parekh Research Innovation Award from the Water Research Foundation, the Agilent Thought Leader Award, and the Nanyang Humanitarian Award for he and his team’s philanthropic work in water and sanitation, which has benefited over two million people in underserved communities in Asia. Recently, Prof. Snyder was awarded the 2021 Clarke Prize, broadly considered as one of the most prestigious awards for outstanding achievements in water science and technology.
Dr. Lu (Mabel) Miao is the Co-founder, Vice President and Secretary-General of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), a Beijing-based premier non-governmental Chinese think tank. In ten years under the leadership of Dr. Miao, CCG has grown from a small research center with a limited staff into China’s largest independent think tank boasting over 100 full-time research and professional staff positions. Through her vision and unwavering dedication, she helped build a strong foundation for the organization’s research and policy advisory capacities over areas of international migration, global trade and investment relations, and global governance.
Dr. Miao also chairs the organizing committees of the China and Globalization Forum and the China Outbound Forum, CCG’s two annual flagship conferences attended by the nation’s business elites, opinion leaders, and senior government officials. She is also a member of the prestigious B20 China Business Council.Dr. Miao is an experienced public speaker, having delivered keynote speeches, participated and moderated numerous panels at home and abroad. As the only north-east Asia recipient, she was awarded “International Young Leader” by the King of the Belgians H.M. Philippe Leopold Louis Marie in 2016. An accomplished scholar, she has 30 publications under her belt, including monographs, edited volumes, co-authored books, and journal articles in the Chinese and English languages with top publishers including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press, Springer, Edward Edgar, and Palgrave Macmillan. She holds a Ph.D degree in Contemporary Chinese Studies from the Beijing Normal University and was a visiting fellow at New York University and Harvard University. Dr. Miao is also a new member of the Hupan University, an exclusive top elite program founded by Alibaba’s Jack Ma that admits only the most outstanding social and business entrepreneurs under 35.Dr. Shawn Zhang is the Chief Energy Economist at Draworld Environment Research Center (DERC). He is also an independent consultant focusing on power sector and broadly energy and low carbon field, and columnist for many distinguished social media on energy issues, including Energy Magzine, Sina.com, and Caixin Wusuobuneng, and China Energy Newspaper. His main focus at DERC is consulting and project management for planning, policy, market and technological assessment in power sector, and smart grid and integration of new energy, carbon market in China. Dr. Zhang also as a senior analyst associated with Agora-energiewende, consulting on the policy of energy from December 2016. From 2013 to 2016, he was Analyst at the International Energy Agency. From 2007 to 2011, he was a Senior Research Scholar at Strategy and Plan Department of State Grid Energy Research Institute (SGERI), a subsidiary of State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), dedicated to strategic management, planning and project; policy assessment in power sector. He had participated in many provincial energy projects and provided advice on strategy and plan, and accumulated extensive knowledge in power sector, including but not limited in, electricity pricing trend, thermal power policy, national wind/solar power development outline. Dr. Zhang has a PhD degree in Energy Economics in 2007.Some of the studies and policy proposal by him and his team, has been adopted by the government as official policies implemented or in the pipeline. The examples include: to support the subsidy account for renewable surcharge through the reduction of benchmark thermal electricity on-grid price, to tight the policy stringency for reducing coal use, to cancel the flawed cap on energy use.
Boon Siong is the CEO of RHT Green. He has over 25 years of experience in various industries including government, financial services, info-comm and sustainability, and holding different responsibilities from research to user operations and vendor service providers. He joined the sustainability movement since 2017 as he felt that it was important so that everyone could co- exist in this ever-shrinking world. He has been involved in different projects like corporate strategy, carbon accounting, green finance.
He is familiar with the regional markets having been in charge of the whole APAC region when he was with Nasdaq-listed CallidusCloud, and has intimate knowledge of China, Indonesia and Vietnam markets as he had direct responsibilities to set up offices and manage the operations there to support the regional expansion of Great Eastern Life Assurance.
Having schooled in the UK and worked for a US Silicon Valley start-up company, Boon Siong has a good understanding of both Western and Asian work culture, and also traditional and start-up environments. Prior to these, he spent several years in government service and hence understand both public and private sectors well.
Boon Siong read Mathematics at Cambridge University and graduated with triple first class. He also holds a Diploma in Actuarial Science from the Institute of Actuaries and completed the Executive Development Programme at INSEAD.
Terence Ho is Associate Professor in Practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He has been with the Singapore Public Service for nearly twenty years, serving in research, policy and leadership roles in various government agencies. He is the author of Refreshing the Singapore System: Recalibrating Socio-Economic Policy for the 21st Century (World Scientific, 2021).
As Deputy Secretary (Culture) since 2012, Mrs Rosa Daniel oversees the policies and implementation work of the Ministry and its statutory boards, The National Heritage Board (NHB) and the National Arts Council (NAC), on the arts and heritage. She was concurrently the Chief Executive of the NHB from 2013 to 2017 where she was responsible for the programmes and initiatives of 9 state museums and galleries, as well as national community outreach efforts to preserve Singapore’s heritage. She relinquished this role to take up another concurrent appointment as Chief Executive of the National Arts Council from 2017 until the present. In this role, she oversees state-funded arts policies and programmes across the performing, visual and literary arts. From 2020, Rosa has also been appointed the Dean of the Ministry’s Culture Academy to drive leadership development and research for the culture sector. She serves on the boards of the Esplanade Theatre and the National Gallery of Singapore and on various public sector advisory panels.
Rosa has had extensive leadership roles in different aspects of public administration. Prior to her current appointments, Rosa was Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources. Rosa also previously served in the Public Service Division as Head of its Strategic Policy Office, while concurrently holding the appointment of Director overseeing the Institute of Policy Development within the Civil Service College. Her other earlier postings within the Civil Service included stints with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Manpower. She was also the Head of an international network of Contact Singapore offices from 1999 to 2001.
Rosa was awarded Singapore government scholarships for undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Oxford University (UK) and Harvard University (US) for politics, philosophy, economics, and business administration. She holds a professional certification in management accounting from the Singapore Management University. In 2011, she was also awarded a Lien Fellowship by the Nanyang Technological University to undertake a year-long research project in China. She was conferred the Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2007 and the Public Administration Medal (Gold) in 2019 by the Singapore government. In 2020, she was conferred the rank of Officier in the Ordre des Arts et des Letters from the French Government.
Dr Jin Weigang is professor at Institute of State System Research in Zhejiang University. He is one of the “National Leading Talents in Philosophy and Social Sciences” named by the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Science and Technology. Dr Jin is recognized expert who enjoys the State Council Special Allowance and member of China Economic and Social Council of CPPCC. He was the dean of Chinese Academy of Labour and Social Security, and the director of the Institute at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.
He also serves as vice chairman of China Association of Social Security, chairman of China Ageing Finance Forum (CAFF50), and member of the Expert Committee of the National Working Commission on Aging. Dr Jin is also adjunct professor at Peking University, School of Public Administration and Policy of Renmin University, etc. He has undertaken and completed more than 100 projects on social security policy. His publications include 70 years of Social Security in China, etc.
Mr Tan Boon Khai was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of JTC Corporation on 1 Sep 2020. Prior to this, he was the Chief Executive of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) from 1 May 2015 till 31 August 2020.
Mr Tan joined SLA from CapitaLand Limited, where he was with since 2010. In his time at CapitaLand, he held several portfolios, including as Regional General Manager (Singapore and Malaysia) for The Ascott Limited from April 2011 to 2014.
Before joining the private sector, Mr Tan served a Justice’s Law Clerk and Assistant Registrar of the Supreme Court, as well as District Judge in the then Subordinate Courts of Singapore. He is also called as an advocate and solicitor in Singapore. In 2006, he was seconded to the Ministry of Health as General Counsel and Company Secretary of Ministry as of Health Holdings Pte Ltd. His last appointment in the Public Service was as Deputy Senior State Counsel / Deputy Public Prosecutor in the Attorney-General’s Chambers of Singapore.
Dr. Li Peng, Doctor of economics, Xiamen University; Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Party school of the Central Committee of C.P.C.; Director of Division of Science of Economics; Mainly researching in economic development and economic system reform.
He released many academic papers in Qiushi, People’s Daily , Reform and other national important journals; Published five academic books; made investigation in more than thirty provinces and cities in China and wrote many research reports; took charge in projects supported by National Social Science Fund and World Bank, etc.; made academic exchange in U.S. ,Canada, Japan and Italy, etc.
Dr Ma is a Lien Fellow with the Lien Ying Chow Legacy Fellowship at Nanyang Technological University. His primary focus was then on the innovation of the financial infrastructure system in the field of “the Belt and Road” Initiative with publications including “Looking Ahead: Assessment of the Sino-Singapore Cooperation on ‘the Belt and Road’ initiative”. He graduated from PBC School of Finance, Tsinghua University with a PhD in monetary banking studying under Ms. Xiaoling Wu, former Deputy Governor of the People's Bank of China and a master's degree in international finance studying under Mr. Chen Yuan, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former President of China Development Bank. Dr Ma obtained his MBA degree at China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) and bachelor degree from Beijing Jiaotong University.
Dr Ma is currently leading the government relations and institutional customer development at CICC Capital and also the President of the CTI Fund. Before Dr Ma joined CICC Capital, he was the deputy director-general of the Treasury & Financial Market Department at China Development Bank.
Mr Goh Sin Teck joined Lianhe Zaobao, Singapore Press Holding's Chinese flagship paper, in 1987 upon graduating from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. He started as a crime reporter before assuming his current role as the Editor of Lianhe Zaobao & Lianhe Wanbao.
Mr Goh has served in various committees including Housing Development Board, Public Transport Council, Primary Education Review and Implementation Committee, Singapore 21 Subcommittee on Foreign Talent, Charity Council, National Integration Council, Political Films Consultative Committee, Committee to Promote Chinese Language Learning, Urban Redevelopment Authority Board and many more.
At present, he is a member of Nanyang Technological University’s Board of Trustees, , and National Translation Committee.
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