HOW can Singapore produce engineers who will invent the next Apple iPhone or iPod Touch which combines superior design, sound engineering and savvy marketing?

This question has been on the minds of the 13-member panel which has been looking at what form the fourth publicly funded university should take.

And on Tuesday Minister of State for Education Lui Tuck Yew who heads the panel revealed some of the answers that his team had come up with so far.

He confirmed that the fourth university, which will be set up in a few years, will not be an add-on campus to an existing university. It will be an independent, medium-sized university taking in between 2,500 and 3,000 students a year.

As a new institution, it will be easier for the university to break out of the mould and offer a different approach in teaching its undergraduates, explained Rear-Admiral (NS) Lui.

As he sketched the rough outline for the the fourth university, he said what had preoccupied the panel members was the 'shape and needs' of the economy in the years to come and how to produce graduates who would thrive in the new economy and add value to Singapore's economy.

The panel had visited several leading institutions in Europe and the United States, including Stanford University's Institute of Design, and came away convinced that innovative thinking is best encouraged when strong multidisciplinary groups of students come together to explore the intersection of their different points of view.

With this in mind, the panel's suggestion is for the new university to abandon the traditional rigid boundaries around disciplines, but to integrate various areas of study.

Its engineering students, for example, could study design thinking and principles to help them come up with products attuned to users' needs. Learning the business aspects of engineering will help them develop strong project management and entrepreneurial skills.

The new university should also provide multiple opportunities to its students to go on internships and attachments.

Such opportunities blur the lines between the classroom and the workplace, with the goal not only to help the companies but also to train the next generation of business leaders and designers.

Mr Lui's team also wants entrepreneurship to be part of the core curriculum, but it need not be taught through a course within the confines of a classroom. Instead the university can offer its students the flexibility to disrupt their studies for a year or two to start up their own business.

The committee had come into being after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced in August last year that more university places - for up to 30 per cent of each Primary 1 cohort - will be provided by 2015.

Since then, it had consulted widely with industry leaders, parents and students and looked at possible models and approaches to university education in other parts of the world.

But up till Tuesday, it had kept mum about what form the fourth university would take.

Rear-Admiral (NS) Lui explained why his team had decided against setting up campuses affiliated to the existing universities, a suggestion that had been thrown up by some, including ex-Cabinet minister Dr Tony Tan, who is adviser to the committee.

He said setting up a new university that is independent of the our existing universities, 'offers the best chance of creating an institution that will develop its own unique identity, character and model of education'.

For example, the existing universities have been trying to launch interdisciplinary programmes that aim to bridge the divide between faculties.

However pre-existing conditions such as organisational structure and culture, budgeting and manpower allocation have limited the extent of such programmes.

This year, the three universities will offer a total of 14,700 first-year places, catering to 25 per cent of the cohort, an increase from the 23.5 per cent participation rate last year.

When the fourth university is set up, Singapore's university landscape will include two large universities, NUS and NTU, two mid-sized universities and a number of foreign institutions offering niche degree programmes with the polytechnics.

Part-time degree programmes offered through the local universities as well as SIM University will also be available.