By Dawn Tay

SINGAPORE is going big into research to make growing cities more liveable and sustainable, with the setting up of a research centre and a programme by the National Research Foundation (NRF).

The NRF has tied up with Swiss university Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich to set up the Singapore- ETH Centre (SEC) for Global Environmental Sustainability, in National University of Singapore's University Town.

It will focus on developing green-building technology, urban design and city planning, to help residents maintain quality of life despite growing populations and limited resources.

It will open next year, with about 60 postgraduate students from Singapore and Switzerland and about 30 faculty members.

Yesterday, the NRF also launched a new research programme to develop products or devices to improve transport systems, under its partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

It declined to reveal the cost of both programmes, which are part of a $1-billion project under an initiative to attract the world's best researchers here.

Singapore may be small, but as a densely populated and highly functioning city, it is ideal as a testbed, said ETH Zurich's Professor Gerhard Schmitt.

NRF chairman Tony Tan said that solutions developed here can be exported worldwide. He said: "Not only do we give ourselves a liveable environment in Singapore, but also create economic opportunities and make ourselves relevant and useful to the rest of the world."

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