Research Grant Projects

 

The following is a list of selected research grant projects awarded to faculty members of the College of Integrative Studies since 2019.

2023


External Research Grants


Project Title:Developing a Risk Assessment and Communication Platform to Translate Climate Projections to Policy
Principal Investigator:Terry VAN GEVELT, Associate Professor of Urban Sustainability
Funding Source:National Research Foundation
Project Synopsis:Singapore's latest high-resolution climate change study, V3, led by NEA/CCRS can simulate future impacts of climate change under different scenarios. Climate change effects are complex and often uncertain in when they are likely to occur and how impactful they will be. Furthermore, it is challenging to engage with climate projections as future climate change impacts seem far removed from our immediate experiences. Through this project supported by the NRF and NEA under the CISR funding initiative, the research team will map climate projections impacting Singapore into a risk assessment framework that will identify potential policy solutions to reduce future climate impacts and risks. Immersive virtual reality narratives will be constructed to operationalise the risk assessment framework and communicate the future impacts of climate change, along with the solution space, to policymakers and other stakeholders. Taken together, this will make the impacts of climate change directly relevant and provide a platform to translate climate science into effective policy.
Project Title:Building a Deeper Long-Term Climate Understanding of Rainfall Trends in Singapore, West Malaysia, and Northern Sumatra
Principal Investigator:Fiona Clare WILLIAMSON, Associate Professor of Environmental History
Funding Source:Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 2
Project Synopsis:This project will create new knowledge derived from historical sources to benefit the academic and scientific communities of Singapore in understanding long-term regional rainfall variability. This benefits Singapore by revealing long-term trends and extremes, critical to water security and climate-change preparedness now, and in the future. This benefits society by helping scholars and government in managing water-related risk.
Project Title:Cool Paints Trials in Schools to Mitigate UHI Effects
Principal Investigator:Winston CHOW, Professor of Urban Climate
Funding Source:National Environment Agency
Project Synopsis:The project aims to collect data to assess the efficacy of cool paints in mitigating the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effects in schools through the deployment of micro-scale sensors.

Internal Research Grants


Project Title:

Natural Infrastructure, Interspecies Entanglements, and Spatial Relations in Singapore and Houston

Principal Investigator:

Sayd RANDLE, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies

Funding Source: 

Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1

Project Synopsis:

Cities globally are increasingly adopting nature-based infrastructure to address urban environmental challenges. These green spaces, a central aspect of Singapore's Green Plan 2030, serve ecological functions like managing stormwater, improving air quality, and storing carbon. However, the proposed research delves into the overlooked impact of these natural infrastructures on non-domesticated animals, exploring their role in shaping urban environments and socio-ecological relations. By centering on these creatures, the study aims to provide insights into how green infrastructure projects impact city life, aiding planners in fostering public support and engagement for sustainable urban development and climate change mitigation.

Project Title:

Practical Challenges to Interdisciplinary Research in Energy Studies

Principal Investigator:

Terry VAN GEVELT, Associate Professor of Urban Sustainability

Funding Source: 

Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1

Project Synopsis:

The need for interdisciplinary research in energy studies is widely acknowledged, but practical challenges hinder collaboration. Issues include varying publication norms, academic promotion favoring single-discipline work, and perceptions of lower rigor in interdisciplinary research. This project aims to systematically understand these challenges using advanced statistical techniques. Three key questions will be explored: (1) How do collaborators from different disciplines reconcile differences in authorship conventions when publishing interdisciplinary work in energy studies?; (2) Does interdisciplinary collaboration negatively impact a scholar's standing in their home discipline?; (3) Are research articles published in interdisciplinary energy studies journals perceived to be less rigorous than articles published in single-discipline journals? The study seeks to provide evidence-based insights and contribute to facilitating interdisciplinary research in energy studies and beyond.

Project Title:

Education Infrastructures and Migrant Un/Belonging: Indian Students in Singapore

Principal Investigator:

Orlando WOODS, Associate Professor of Geography

Funding Source: 

Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1 (Partnership with University of Toronto)

Project Synopsis:

This project seeks to understand the role of “education infrastructures” in shaping the terms and extent of belonging amongst Indian migrants in Singapore and explores the development and potential fracturing of an idea of “global Indianness” as it is taught, experienced, and lived in Singapore and Toronto.

2022


External Research Grants


Project Title:

Technocratic Regionalism in Southeast Asia: The Translational Politics of Smart City Knowledge Transfer

Principal Investigator:

Orlando WOODS, Associate Professor of Geography

Funding Source:

Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 2

Project Synopsis:

This project will explore the translational politics of smart city knowledge transfer, and how these politics manifest in urban environments throughout Southeast Asia. We define “translational politics” as the (mis)alignments, tensions and opportunities for exploitation that emerge when different scales of influence converge and materialise within a given urban context. We will explore the emergence of “technocratic regionalism” as a strategy through which power and inequality are (re)produced at both the macro (or global, regional and national) and micro (or local) scales.

Project Title:

Cooling Singapore 2.0: Urban Climate Risks and Benefits

Principal Investigator:

Winston CHOW, Professor of Urban Climate

Funding Source: 

National Research Foundation

Project Synopsis:

This project is an interdisciplinary and multi-institute work package, led by SMU, making use of the Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT) results from the first Cooling Singapore 2.0 work package to examine the urban climate risks and impacts from environmental and physiological perspectives. The objectives include (a.) investigating where and who in Singapore will be affected by excessive heat from urbanisation and climate change, and (b.) examining if existing measures, such as vegetation cover, will have reduced effectiveness in minimising heat exposure under a warming climate. Results from this project will aid in assessment and future policy development towards urban warmth solutions in Singapore.

Project Title:

The ‘Other’ Garden City: Documenting Singapore’s Edible Gardening Heritage

Principal Investigator:

Fiona Clare WILLIAMSON, Associate Professor of Environmental History

Funding Source: 

National Heritage Board's Heritage Research Grant

Project Synopsis:

Spanning approximately two hundred years of Singapore’s modern history, this study will draw upon a wide array of textual and non-textual historical and contemporary sources to document gardening in Singapore from the 19th century to the present day. It will identify the ways in which historical gardening practices in Singapore have been continued, reinforced, and transformed into the contemporary period through building a body of new research and knowledge. In doing so, our proposed study will reflect an increased focus on ICH as part of the Our SG Heritage Plan and catalyze the writing of a new environmental history of Singapore, one which places ordinary people and practices in the foreground.


Internal Research Grants


Project Title:

ASEAN and the Cultural Production of Southeast Asian Identities in the late Cold War

Principal Investigator:

NGOEI Wen-Qing, Associate Professor of History

Funding Source: 

Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1

Project Synopsis:

This research project examines how the policies of ASEAN’s Committee on Culture and Information (COCI) shaped its member states’ national identity-building cultural policies in the late Cold War period (1980s-early 1990s) and the ways that non-state culture-makers produced their own visions of national or transnational affiliations that may have complemented, diverged from, or interrogated those of their political elites, including those who served in ASEAN COCI. 

2021


External Research Grants


Project Title: Longitudinal Study to Quantify and Qualify the Impact of the EPR framework for E-waste in Singapore
Principal Investigator: Aidan WONG, Assistant Professor of Urban Studies (Education)
Funding Source:  Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment
Project Synopsis: This five-year longitudinal study with the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) aims to quantify and qualify the economic and environmental impact of the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework for e-waste in Singapore. The findings will aid MSE in assessing the effectiveness of the e-waste EPR and refining it for future phases.

Internal Research Grants


Project Title: Narrating 'Asia,' 'Asians,' and 'Asian America' in Asian American Evangelical Online Publication
Principal Investigator: Justin K TSE, Assistant Professor of Religion and Culture (Education)
Funding Source:  Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1
Project Synopsis: This project concerns the digital transformation of Asian American evangelicalism. We are interested in Asian American evangelical online publications as cyberspace engagements that have transformed how Asian American evangelical communities narrate what they mean by ‘Asia,’ ‘Asians,’ and ‘Asian America.’ Our use of the term ‘Asian American evangelical’ comes from the sociology of religion, where Asian American evangelical communities tell stories about themselves through the phenomenon of the ‘silent exodus’ in the 1990s, during which English-speaking second generation groups left Korean and Chinese Protestant churches in the United States to plant new congregations and start university campus ministries.
Project Title: Corporeal Diplomacy: Cambodia’s Celestial Dancers in the West
Principal Investigator: Darlene Machell ESPENA, Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian Studies (Education)
Funding Source:  Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1
Project Synopsis: This project examines the dynamic relationship between dance and politics from Sihanouk’s rise to power in 1953 until the demise of the Khmer Rouge in 1979 by probing into the role of dance in articulating Cambodia’s Cold War diplomacy and interrogating how the Khmer dance incorporated Cambodia’s changing political interests, ideology and expressions. It contributes to the scholarship on dance and politics by shifting the lens to Southeast Asia and its rich dance traditions and practices.
Project Title: Anglophone Speculative Fiction of late Cold War ASEAN
Principal Investigator: NGOEI Wen-Qing, Associate Professor of History
Funding Source:  Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1
Project Synopsis: This research project examines Anglophone speculative fiction written by ASEAN authors in the late Cold War period (1970s-1980s) and explores particularly how writers of Anglophone speculative fiction, as culture-makers in Southeast Asia, perceived, affirmed, or challenged the efforts of ASEAN elites to work on local and regional identity-building in the late Cold War.

2020


External Research Grants


Project Title:

Cooling Singapore 2.0: Digital Urban Climate Twin

Co-Principal Investigator: 
(Lead SMU Investigator)

Winston CHOW, Professor of Urban Climate

Funding Source: 

National Research Foundation

Project Synopsis:

Cooling Singapore 2.0 is a multi-disciplinary research project that aims to build a Digital Urban Climate Twin (DUCT) in Singapore through the integration of relevant computational models (environmental, land surface, industrial, traffic, building energy), as well as regional- and micro-scale climate models to explore the heat effects of buildings, transport, and industry. DUCT users are exposed to a sophisticated graphical user interface designed to conduct simulation experiments and explore hypothetical scenarios. In turn, the insights gained will facilitate urban planners and policymakers in developing solutions to address the urban heat challenge in Singapore.


Internal Research Grants


Project Title:

Catholic Talk, Social Dreaming: Civil Society Discourse in Ukraine and Hong Kong

Principal Investigator:

Justin K TSE, Assistant Professor of Religion and Culture (Education)

Funding Source: 

Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1

Project Synopsis:

This project focuses on how secular civil society activists in post-Maidan Ukraine and post-Umbrella Movement Hong Kong appropriate ‘Catholic talk’ for what we call their ‘social dreaming,’ their aspirations for a democratic civil society marked by rule of law and respect for human rights. 

Project Title:

ASEAN Writers and Artists and the Post-Vietnam War World

Principal Investigator:

NGOEI Wen-Qing, Associate Professor of History

Funding Source: 

Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1

Project Synopsis:

This project explores how ASEAN culture-makers—specifically artists and writers—from the 1970s to the early 1990s produced works that imagined, portrayed and shaped the post-Vietnam War era in their own country’s and the region’s foreign relations with the wider world. 

2019


External Research Grants


Project Title:

Environmental Perception in Mandai Parks

Principal Investigator:

Winston CHOW, Professor of Urban Climate

Funding Source: 

Mandai Park Development Pte Ltd

Project Synopsis:

This research project aims to find out how thermal environment impacts the effectiveness of environmental/educational message retention by guests visiting current parks in the Mandai district – Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, River Safari, and will allow the research team to formulate suggestions that will help inform how and where educational messages can be deployed for maximum effectiveness within the new features of the Mandai project.

Project Title:

New Religious Pluralisms in Singapore: Migration, Integration and Difference

Principal Investigator:

Orlando WOODS, Associate Professor of Geography

Funding Source: 

Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 2

Project Synopsis:

The project seeks to understand the extent to which religion can enable or disenable the integration of migrant and nonmigrant communities from different religious traditions. Through such an understanding, the project hopes to identify the extent to which new religious pluralisms exist in Singapore, how they manifest across different religious groups, and the strategies deployed by different religious groups to manage them.

Project Title:

Cooling Singapore 1.5: Virtual Singapore Urban Climate Design

Co-Principal Investigator:
(Lead SMU Investigator)

Winston CHOW, Professor of Urban Climate

Funding Source: 

National Research Foundation

Project Synopsis:

Singapore has become warmer in recent years as a result of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect. Reducing this effect, and so improving the thermal comfort for the city’s residents, will require the combined effort from many stakeholders from government, academia, and private sector. The UHI has become a matter of increasing concern because of its many, mainly negative, effects upon the quality of urban life. In tropical Singapore, increased temperatures due to UHI negatively affect people’s liveability and outdoor thermal comfort (OTC). Many of these problems are likely to become more severe in the future, partly because of urban growth but also exacerbated by the impacts of climate change upon cities. Tackling such a complex undertaking necessitates a multidisciplinary and all-of-government approach.


Internal Research Grants


Project Title: Choreographing the Nation: Dance as Diplomacy in Cold War Cambodia
Principal Investigator: Darlene Machell ESPENA, Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian Studies (Education)
Funding Source:  Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1
Project Synopsis: This research looks into the specific case of Cambodia from Sihanouk’s rise to power in 1953 up until the demise of the Khmer Rouge in 1979, a period where Khmer dance performances became an integral part of Cambodia’s diplomatic affairs.
Project Title: Reconstructing El Niño in Singapore and Malaysia: a multi-disciplinary approach
Principal Investigator: Fiona Clare WILLIAMSON, Associate Professor of Environmental History
Funding Source:  Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund Tier 1
Project Synopsis: This multi-disciplinary project draws from the principle that current studies of extreme climatic event have not been well-integrated or evenly balanced across different fields and, that a close lens into past events can prove vital for understanding the ramifications of severe climate events today and in the future.