At the turn of the century, Singapore increased its focus on knowledge and innovation-intensive activities. R&D is now a cornerstone of the country’s economic development, and in 2006, the Government set aside more than $13 billion to promote R&D over the next 5 years. Singapore's goal is to increase gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) from 2.25% to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) within 5 years.

As a precondition to becoming an information-led economy Singapore has put in place a strong Intellectual Property protection and enforcement environment, and now ranks first in Asia for IP protection.

The National Research Foundation was set up in 2006 to develop, coordinate and implement national research and innovation strategies under the national R&D agenda. To date, most of the R&D activity has been focused on environmental & water technology, biomedical sciences, and interactive and digital media.

Today, a strong and established network of public and private-sector R&D centres work closely together to commercialise new technologies, processes and products.