Loading

In 2007, the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC) raised a total of $2.5 million, which, with additional funding from the Singapore Government and other sources, enabled RSIS to establish an endowed chair known as the NTUC Professorship in International Economic Relations. Set up in 1961, the NTUC is the national federation of trade unions in Singapore whose basic aim is to safeguard and enhance the interests of workers.

Income from the endowment will enable RSIS to appoint an NTUC Professor of International Economic Relations to provide leadership for the School’s International Political Economy Programme. As such, besides possessing strong academic credentials, the holder of the chair will have policy experience working in multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Asia Development Bank and the World Trade Organisation, as well as in government ministries responsible for policy formulation in international trade, investments and finance. He or she will also be familiar with increasingly important entities such as hedge funds, private equities, petrodollars and sovereign wealth funds.

The first scholar to hold this prestigious chair was Professor Vinod K. Aggarwal, the Director of the Berkeley APEC Study Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Aggarwal was at RSIS for the month of March 2009. The second scholar to be appointed as the NTUC Professor of International Economic Relations was Professor John Ravenhill of the Department of International Relations, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. Professor Ravenhill held the Chair from 12 November 2009 to 31 May 2010. A scholar to lead RSIS’s International Political Economy Programme will be appointed when there is sufficient income from the endowment.