While the School acknowledges that diversity is an essential pre-requisite for a world-class public policy institution, it remains steadfast in its dedication to have an Asian focus. To achieve its vision of becoming a centre for public policy research, education and discourse, the School has established two centres of excellence, was joined by a third in January 2008 and will continue to pursue opportunities to establish a fourth in the later part of the year. These centres serve as forums where international thinkers – including academics, practitioners, and politicians – come together and further public policy discourse in Asia.

Through the work of the centres, the School hopes to attract leading academics and potential alliance partners to study Asia’s role in and contribution to globalisation, and national competitiveness in Asia. It is hoped that research in these two areas will bridge the gap between current knowledge and the knowledge required to meet future challenges.

http://www.lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/Research_Centres.aspx

The School provides a platform for faculty, visiting scholars and students to examine critical public policy issues facing Asian and other countries.

Research on Post-Tsunami Reconstruction Efforts in the Aceh-Nias Region
Faculty members of the School are working on a research project to examine how government, civil society, and other actors – at the local, regional, national, and international level– are responding to the unique and combined challenges of building peace and recovering from the 2004 tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia. Immediate deliverables from the project include a set of teaching case studies on public policy issues related to post-tsunami and post-conflict environments.

Connected to this project, School faculty members are collaborating in a multi-disciplinary, multi-faculty research proposal to the Ministry of Education’s Academic Research Fund (ACRF) Tier 2. This proposed research project which includes researchers from NUS’ Asia Research Institute and Law Faculty, will look at the reconstruction of Aceh’s society– including both its formal and informal institutions, rules, and culture – at all levels, starting from the individual and ascending to the level of the Aceh region itself. We expect the findings to contribute to overall understanding about how to rebuild societies, and their systems of governance in post-disaster and post-conflict environments in Asia.

Working Papers
Faculty members have produced several working papers, some of which have been presented at conferences and/ or published. Topics covered by the working papers include, Determinants of Economic Growth in the Information Age (Vu Minh Khuong), Negotiation and Conflict Management: A Public Policy Perspective (Boyd W Fuller and Scott A Fritzen), and India’s Membership: APEC’s Relevance (Mukul G Asher and Rahul Sen).

http://www.lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/Working_Papers.aspx

The School sponsors the journal Policy and Society and provides opportunities for international students to publish their work on Asian-Pacific policy issues through the student journal Asian Journal of Public Affairs (AJPA).

http://www.lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/Publications.aspx