The UK’s science, research and innovation institutions are working around the clock to understand and tackle the COVID-19 pandemic – both domestically and around the world.
It is doing this by supporting vaccine trials in national labs and by collaborating with international partners like The Science and Innovation Network to ensure a COVID-19-free world.
The Science and Innovation Network in Singapore promotes and facilitates international collaboration in research and innovation.
Research and knowledge is increasingly developed and transferred through international collaboration which provides opportunities to work with the best in the world, exchange students and researchers, and gain access to large scale international facilities, leading to mutual benefits for UK and Singapore. And this is especially relevant during the pandemic.
UK-Singapore collaborations in COVID-19 treatment
The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine is collaborating with the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore on COVID-19 modelling studies.
This is one in a number of UK-Singapore joint research on possible COVID-19 treatments that build on the strong alliances between our universities and labs.
Nanyang Technological University Singapore and the University of Oxford published a report on primary care handling of COVID-19 that fed into NICE telemedicine guidelines for medical practitioners around the world.
UK collaborates with South East Asia Region to beat COVID-19
Outside of Singapore, the UK’s Wellcome Trust is supporting a serological survey of COVID-19 infection risk in Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand.
The UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) and Newton Fund Agile COVID-19 Response call funds COVID-19 research projects in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
In addition, several Newton Fund calls in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand have been re-focused to address pandemic impacts on local communities, such as the Newton funded project CONI (COVID-19 Network Investigation Alliance) in Thailand, which uses genomic technology to investigate and monitor COVID-19 infections in the country.
The UK has also recently launched the Global Effort on COVID-19 (GECO) Health Research call that focuses on delivering priority areas in the WHO COVID-19 Roadmap and is especially targeting low and middle income countries, including in the Southeast Asian region.