By Clarissa Oon

SINGAPORE'S premier public policy school is expanding its global footprint, with its hiring of six experts on India, China and Russia as well as technology and environmental issues.

Among them, the new arrivals at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) will head research centres on technological innovation and water policy, while also strengthening the school's expertise in regional politics.

A new information and innovation policy centre, to be housed within the school, will be led by former Harvard University professor and technopreneur Viktor Mayer-Schonberger (see other story).

Other new faculty members include political scientist Huang Jing, an internationally-recognised China expert; Indian media expert and economist Sanjaya Baru; and Russia expert Mary Astrid Tuminez.

Environmental policy specialist Shreekant Gupta and the director of the Institute of Water Policy K. E. Seetharam bring the school's total number of faculty members to 40.

LKYSPP Dean Kishore Mahbubani said the new hires are a concerted attempt to broaden the school's expertise beyond regional governance and economics and make it more attractive to students here and overseas.

He added that among them, the six individuals 'have a wide range of experience and expertise' and 'strengthen an already strong faculty' through their diverse backgrounds in academia, public and international organisations and the private sector.

A draw for several of these professors was the fast-track progress of the four-year-old school, the first in Asia to join a high-level network of global public policy institutions spearheaded by the likes of New York's Columbia University.

'Just four years and it's already on par with institutions with over 100 years of history. It's amazing,' said Dr Huang, a former senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, a leading public policy think-tank in Washington.

Aside from being impressed with the management of the LKYSPP and the entire National University of Singapore, the political scientist felt Singapore was 'independent' yet close enough to China for his research.

Currently playing an advisory role in ongoing talks between China and Tibet's exiled Dalai Lama, Dr Huang plans to study issues of Asian regionalism involving not just China but also its neighbouring countries, India and Asean.

For other new arrivals to the school like Philippine-born Dr Tuminez - a Russia scholar who speaks fluent Russian - research will not be their only priority.

Dr Tuminez's job as Assistant Dean of executive education and development will involve strengthening links with governments, universities and funding bodies around the world.

As she puts it, 'we want to find ways to increase our policy impact, because this is a public policy school after all, and what use is our research if we're not heard'.

The LKYSPP has more than 280 masters and PhD students from 42 countries, and also conducts training programmes for government officials.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Sept 24, 2008.

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