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VISION 2025

To be a world-renowned global city university, tackling the world’s complexities, impacting humanity positively.

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Vision 2025

SMU 2025: Growing Impact, Cultivating Change

Since Vision 2025 was first unveiled in 2014, SMU has steadily grown in the breadth and depth of our accomplishments.
We have successfully made meaningful impact in myriad ways on our economy and society.

From 2020, we enter the second phase of this journey, at a time when the world is facing new challenges and opportunities –
not least those presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our university must respond and refocus our resources and energies accordingly.

Our Priorities

SMU has selected three priorities that serve as cross-disciplinary focal points cutting across our Schools
and focusing our efforts on areas of particular economic and social relevance to our nation and region.

Digital Transformation

  • Spearhead cutting-edge ideas to digitally transform the private and public sectors
  • Develop robust insights into the impact of digitisation on customer and citizen experience

Sustainable Living

  • Drive solutions in managing climate change and sustainable city living, enhancing quality of life
  • Shaping legal and regulatory frameworks to build healthier and happier societies

Growth in Asia

  • Offer a deep understanding of Asia’s economy, polity and society
  • Contribute to the region’s growth and manage the ensuing impacts

These priorities were selected because they

  • Address the future needs of Singapore, the regional economy and community
  • Position students well for the future
  • Draw on a wealth of faculty expertise
  • Align with SMU’s unique strengths
  • Provide meaningful opportunities for staff contributions
  • Capture the interest of external stakeholders as potential collaborators and benefactors

Our Strategies

Nurturing global citizens for tomorrow through
Transformative Education

Addressing societal challenges through
Cutting Edge Research

Engaging with the city and world to make
Meaningful impact

Our cross-disciplinary strategies create impact in the three priorities through strengthening SMU’s reputation among students and employers,
conducting leading research with direct societal impact, and building a green and digitally connected university.

Our Enablers

Implementing our strategies and initiatives will require the support of an enabling infrastructure.

SMU Differentiators

Distinctive enablers that are critical to our success

Industry

Strengthen industry engagement through a dedicated unit

Innovation

Support all innovation and entrepreneurship activities through a university-level body

Internationalisation

Expand our international footprint and connections through like-minded partners and institutions

Integration

Develop more integrated OneSMU approaches in multiple activities and offerings

UNIVERSITY FUNDAMENTALS

Foundational enablers

Faculty & staff

Retain, develop and attract world-class faculty, staff and researchers

Students

Attract high-quality students with strong potential

Alumni, donors & advisors

Engage alumni, donors and advisory boards

Financial resources

Establish a robust financial base

Physical/Digital

Ensure adequate physical space / facilities and digital infrastructure / services

Research Support

Build a strong research support infrastructure

SMU 2025: Growing Impact, Cultivating Change

Together, this constitutes our university strategic plan. It gives us focus, provided in the form of a framework of strategies and enablers,
with specific strategic and enabling initiatives to carry through the Vision, within which there is freedom to come up with new ideas and initiatives.

Download the SMU 2025 Compendium here

Hear It From Our People

As we make steady progress in nurturing impact in and beyond our society,
get a glimpse into how our colleagues feel about the SMU 2025 strategic plan.

The distinctive advantage SMU can offer under the heading Digital Transformation is to maximise the value-add using data, logic and knowledge.
Prof Maxwell King
(Member, Board of Trustees)
I wholeheartedly support this focusing. It plays to SMU’s strengths and is the right number of priorities, given SMU's size. I like the fact that staff are included as well.
Sir Nigel Thrift
(Member, Board of Trustees)
Colleagues seemed genuinely excited by the plans. I too am excited about the plans and would love to be part of a university with the ambitions laid out and the resolve to meet them.
Sunita Chatta
(Senior Deputy Director, PVO)
The flexibility to make adjustments to the strategic plan is important as change is the only constant. We are strategising for change rather than to last.
Lau Kai Cheong
(Chief Information Officer / Vice President)
The strategic priorities are a timely and topical way to integrate and align the diverse research interests of the SMU faculty. I am excited to see the interdisciplinary potential of the strategic priorities be realised in years to come.
Orlando Woods
(Assistant Professor of Humanities)
I like it that disciplinary research is valued but that, as a University, there are three strategic priority areas that have been identified after a careful process that goes back to the Ideation Tables.
Hoon Hian Teck
(Dean, School of Economics)

Last updated on 4 Mar 2021.