Nanyang Technological University

The Nanyang Technological University (Abbreviation: NTU) is an autonomous university in Singapore. NTU is consistently ranked amongst the world's best universities in all of the major college and university rankings and is regarded as one of the top 2 universities in Asia. In the 2016 QS World University Rankings, NTU was ranked 13th in the world and 2nd in Asia. In the 2016 Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings, NTU was also ranked 2nd in Asia. Additionally, it has been recognised as the world's top young university for 3 consecutive years by the QS young university rankings.

NTU is a comprehensive and research-intensive university, with over 33,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students. The University is organized into eight colleges and schools. They are the College of Engineering, the College of Science, the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the Nanyang Business School, and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine - set up jointly with Imperial College London. NTU is also home to several autonomous institutions including the National Institute of Education, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Interdisciplinary Graduate School, Earth Observatory of Singapore, Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering, Institute on Asian Consumer Insight, and the College of Professional and Continuing Education.

The university's main campus covers 200 hectare of land, making it the largest university campus in Singapore. The primary campus grounds are located in the western part of Singapore, along 50 Nanyang Avenue. NTU also has two other campuses, one in Novena and another at one-north.

Before Nanyang Technological Institute
In 1956, prior to Singapore's independence from the British, Nanyang University was established. Nanyang University merged with the National University of Singapore in 1980. A new university—the Nanyang Technological Institute (NTI)—was formed to take over Nanyang University's campus in 1981.

Nanyang Technological Institute (1981–1991)
Nanyang Technological Institute (NTI) was set up on 1 August 1981 with a charter to train three-quarters of Singapore’s engineers. When NTI started in 1982, it had a total student population of 582 in three engineering disciplines – civil and structural, electrical and electronic, and mechanical and production engineering. By 1990, the institute’s undergraduate student population had grown to 6,832. The first two graduate students were admitted in 1986. Three engineering schools were added, and the School of Accountancy from the National University of Singapore was transferred to NTI in 1987. A school of applied science was also started. In 1990, the government announced that the Institute of Education would be merged with the College of Physical Education to form the National Institute of Education and that it would be part of the new NTU upon its establishment in 1991.

Present form: Nanyang Technological University (1991–present)
In 1991, NTI merged with the National Institute of Education (NIE) (founded in 1950) to form the Nanyang Technological University (NTU). The alumni rolls of the former Nanyang University were transferred to NTU in 1996. Historically, Nanyang Technological University admitted students jointly with the National University of Singapore and charged the same fees. Students made only one application and they would be accepted by either university. In 2004, the joint admission ended and students could apply separately to both universities as both universities began to distinguish themselves.

NTU became autonomous in 2006 and stands as one of the two largest public universities in Singapore today.

Yunnan Garden Campus
NTU's primary campus is the 200 hectare Yunnan Garden Campus which is situated adjacent to the town of Jurong West. It is the largest university campus on the island of Singapore, housing Singapore's largest on-campus residence infrastructure including 18 halls of residence for undergraduates and two graduate halls.

The campus grounds were originally donated by the Singapore Hokkien Association to Nanyang University. In 1981, the Nanyang University grounds were granted to the Nanyang Technological Institute, a newly formed English-medium engineering college. With the formation of the NTU through NTI's merger with the National Institute of Education (NIE), the grounds were then presented to the university.

The former Nanyang University administration building was beautifully restored into the Chinese Heritage Centre and was gazetted as a national monument in 1998 - now overlooking the historical Yunnan Garden. The Nanyang University Memorial and original Nanyang University Arch were also declared national monuments of Singapore in 1998. The NTU Art & Heritage Museum is an approved public museum under the National Heritage Board’s Approved Museum Scheme; benefactors who donate artworks and artefacts to NTU enjoy double tax deductions. There is a small lake between the Chinese Heritage Centre and Hall of Residence 4 called Nanyang Lake. Only members of NTU Anglers' Club permit holder, the fishing club at NTU, are allowed to fish in this lake.

In 2008, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, one of the world’s largest foundations for entrepreneurship, selected NTU as the first Kauffman campus outside of the US.

The campus also served as the Youth Olympic Village for the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in 2010.

Singapore's first eco-business park, CleanTech Park, is situated next to NTU's main campus. It is proposed to be developed in three phases with an estimated completion year of 2030. The park's first multi-tenanted building, CleanTech One, was opened in October 2010. CleanTech One's tenants include those from the public sector (the Nanyang Environment & Water Research Institute (NEWRI), the Energy Research Institute @ NTU (ERI@N), and the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore), as well as from the private sector (DHI Water & Environment, Toray Industries, Silecs International, CIMA Nanotech, Diamond Energy, the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore (SEAS), Yingli Solar, and Pfizer).

NTU@one-north
NTU@one-north is located at the one-north business park, and is home to the NTU Alumni Clubhouse. It comprises two wings with educational and recreational facilities primarily allowing the university to enhance its delivery of continuing education programmes through the Centre for Continuing Education and Confucius Institute of NTU.

The educational facilities include a 215-seat auditorium, an 80-seat lecture theatre, six 45-seat lecture theatres, twenty-one 18 to 50-seat seminar rooms, three 18 to 27-seat computer rooms and eight 6-seat discussion rooms. Alumni clubhouse facilities include a fun pool, a Chinese restaurant, games arcade, wine bar, lounge, karaoke rooms, games rooms, gymnasium, childcare centre and SPA. The Campus is also home to NTU's Centre for Continuing Education and the Confucius Institute of NTU.

Novena Campus


A third campus, Novena Campus, is situated close to LKCMedicine’s partner teaching hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital in downtown Novena. The new 20-storey Clinical Sciences Building was completed in 2016. The CSB will is home to LKCMedicine researchers, with the laboratories interconnected through collaborative spaces.

Living spaces
On-campus housing is located within NTU's Yunnan Garden Campus.

Undergraduate halls


NTU has 21 Halls of Residence for undergraduates, each with a capacity of between 500 & 659 residents. They accommodate 14,000 local and international students, with every freshman guaranteed a hostel room. All halls are co-ed by floor or wing and offer single and double occupancy rooms. Double rooms are shared by residents of the same gender. Every hall has communal facilities like lounges, air-conditioned reading rooms, pantries and laundry rooms with washing machines and dryers. Presently, 44% of the undergraduate student population stay on campus, but the University hopes to increase that number to 60% by 2017.

Graduate halls
On-campus graduate housing is available at two on-campus graduate halls - Graduate Hall 1 and Graduate Hall 2, with a capacity of 476 and 852 respectively.

Faculty housing
Faculty Housing consists of five clusters made up of apartment blocks, maisonettes, semi-detached houses and bungalows. There is also a wide variety of housing types consisting of 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom, 3 bedroom and duplex units.

Internet learning on campus
The University is connected to the Internet. All the facilities and resources available over the Internet are accessible by anyone on the campus network. The campus network, which links together all computing systems on the campus, is managed by the University's Centre for IT Services.

To supplement the fixed-line campus network, NTU implemented a campus-wide wireless network in 2000. This high-speed wireless network, enables NTU staff and students equipped with mobile devices such as notebooks, PCs and PDAs to access all networked services from practically anywhere on the campus without the need for a hardwired network connection.

NTU provides e-learning services, which is based on BlackBoard technology, provides the framework and eco-system for learning and teaching. Besides providing a repository of lecture recordings, lecture notes, it also facilitates learning activities for collaboration, discussion, assessment and project work.

Colleges, schools and institutes


NTU is organised into several colleges and schools, each corresponding to different fields of study. The founding colleges include the College of Engineering, College of Business (Nanyang Business School), Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, and the National Institute of Education, which have been part of NTU since its inception in 1991.

More recently, NTU has established additional schools for the Biological Sciences (2001), Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) (2004), Physical & Mathematical Sciences (2005), and Art, Design and Media (2009). In 2013, NTU and Imperial College London jointly established a new medical school, the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, which is based in the Novena campus along 11 Mandalay Road. In October 2016, the University announced that HSS would be expanded into two separate schools, namely the School of Humanities and the School of Social Sciences.

NTU also hosts a number of autonomous institutes: the National Institute of Education, the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and two recently established research institutes.

Nanyang Business School


Nanyang Business School (NBS) is the largest business school in Singapore with over 6,800 undergraduates and postgraduates pursuing degrees in Accountancy and Business, as well as one of the world's top MBA programmes. It is also the No.1 business school in Singapore and 3rd in the Asia-Pacific region according to the Financial Times. For 13 consecutive years since 2004, the Nanyang MBA has been ranked the best in Singapore according to The Economist. NBS has more than 160 professors from more than 20 countries, proficient in 30 languages holding doctorates from the most renowned universities in the world. This makes NBS one of the largest business schools in the world in terms of faculty strength.

NBS is the only business school in Singapore to offer the 3-year direct-honours single degree programme in Business or Accountancy. Its widely popular double degree programme in Accountancy and Business can be completed within 3.5 – 4 years, and the newly introduced integrated Bachelor & Master's programme takes 4 years to complete. Students enrolled into the Business programme are allowed to specialise in their penultimate year of study in one of six areas, namely: Actuarial Science, Banking & Finance, Business Analytics, Human Resource Consulting, Marketing, Risk Management and Insurance. Those who choose to major in Banking & Finance have the added option to choose one of three specialised tracks which include 'Platform-based Learning' and 'International Trading'. NBS also houses the 165-square meter Centre for Applied Financial Education, the largest finance lab in Singapore. The new lab is equipped with 60 dedicated Thomson Reuters Eikon terminals with Datastream, along with 24 Bloomberg terminals that will allow business school students to access all kinds of real-time financial, economic and business news information.

The business school provides undergraduates with the opportunity to go on a semester-long exchange, on top of overseas study missions and compulsory internships. Graduate programmes offered by NBS include the top-ranked Nanyang MBA, Nanyang Executive MBA, MSc Accountancy, and MSc Financial Engineering.

College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences
HASS consists of four schools:


 * The Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information is a school of communication studies and offers courses in Journalism, Broadcast, Advertising, Communication Policy and Information Studies. It originally established in 1992 and it was named after Singapore's former president Wee Kim Wee in 1995.
 * The School of Art, Design and Media is Singapore's first professional art school and offers an undergraduate programmes in Art, Design, and Media, as well as graduate degrees in arts research. Its building, which features a sloping grassy roof surrounding a central courtyard, is frequently featured in NTU's promotional materials.
 * The School of Humanities which offers programmes in a wide variety of fields including Chinese, English Literature, History, Linguistics and Philosophy.
 * The School of Social Sciences which offers Economics, Psychology, Public Policy and Sociology.

College of Engineering


The College of Engineering is NTU's largest subdivision. It is claimed to be the world's largest engineering college, with a student population of more than 10,500 undergraduates and 3,500 graduates. It consists of six schools (Chemical and Biomedical, Civil and Environmental, Computer Science, Electrical and Electronic, Materials Science, Mechanical and Aerospace) focused on technology and innovation.

The college offers a rich array of multidisciplinary programmes and specialisations in traditional engineering disciplines and beyond. In addition to the 12 single degree programmes, the college also offers double degrees, double majors and integrated programmes as well as the only aerospace engineering programme in Singapore.

College of Science
Today, the college consists of three schools and is home to about 150 faculty members (more than 15 of which are Singapore National Research Foundation Fellows), 340 research staff, 110 administrative and technical staff, 4,000 undergraduate and 750 graduate students.
 * The School of Biological Sciences was established in 2002 and offers a variety of programmes in the Biological Sciences and also a unique and innovative "East meets West" double degree programme in Biomedical Sciences and Traditional Chinese Medicine with the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in China. Students may also pursue a second major in Food Science and Technology to gain understanding about food processes with an engineering and industrial point of view.
 * The School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences was established in 2005 and offers various disciplines in Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, as well as Earth Sciences in collaboration with the Earth Observatory of Singapore. Students also have the choice of several multidisciplinary programmes such as Chemistry and Biological Chemistry with a second major in Food Science and Technology and/or with optional concentrations in current topics such as Green Chemistry and Nanotechnology, Physics with a second major in Mathematical Sciences and the combined major in Mathematics and Economics.
 * The Asian School of the Environment is a new interdisciplinary School established in 2015 to focus on Asian environmental challenges, integrating Earth systems, environmental life sciences, ecology, and the social sciences to address key issues of the environment and sustainability. Strong interdisciplinary links between ASE and the Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE), the Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) and the Complexity Institute provide a community for tackling large research questions.

Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine


The Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine was established in 2013 in collaboration with Imperial College London. Prior to its opening in 2013, the school received record donations of S$400 million, including S$150 million from the Lee Foundation. The School’s primary clinical partner is the National Healthcare Group.

Interdisciplinary Graduate School
NTU's Interdisciplinary Graduate School focuses on the key research areas within NTU's Peaks of Excellence in Sustainable Earth, New Media and Future Healthcare. Research in these areas span across different disciplines beyond the conventional school-based programmes. IGS leverages on professors from all the schools and colleges in NTU to undertake interdisciplinary research and to act as advisors for IGS PhD students.

Autonomous Institutes
NTU hosts a number of autonomous research and educational institutes.


 * The National Institute of Education (NIE), occupying 16 hectare in the western part of NTU's Yunnan Garden campus, is Singapore's main teaching college and is run in close collaboration with Singapore's Ministry of Education. Full-time teachers in Singapore's public schools are typically required to complete a post-graduate diploma course at NIE, sponsored by Singapore's Ministry of Education. NIE is also internationally acclaimed and provides educational consultancy to countries from Indonesia to UAE.
 * The S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), named after Singapore's former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, offers graduate programmes in international relations and is an autonomous graduate institution of NTU. The school has the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies—long recognised as a world authority on strategic studies and terrorism. RSIS was ranked second among university-affiliated think tanks in Asia in the 2011 Global Go-To Think Tank Rankings.
 * The Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering (SCELSE) is a unique interdisciplinary Research Centre of Excellence (RCE), funded by National Research Foundation, Singapore Ministry of Education, Nanyang Technological University and National University of Singapore. Hosted by the NTU in partnership with NUS, SCELSE is linking new insights from the Life Sciences with expertise from the emerging technologies in Engineering and Natural Sciences to understand, harness and control microbial biofilm communities. The union of these fields has established a new discipline of Environmental Life Sciences Engineering.
 * The Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) is an autonomous research institute specialising in Earth Sciences and conducts fundamental research on earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis & climate change in and around Southeast Asia, towards safer and more sustainable societies.

Undergraduate education
NTU has a total undergraduate population of around 24,300. Approximately 80% of undergraduates are Singaporean citizens and permanent residents. The remaining 20% of international students are mostly from the ASEAN nations, China, and India.

When applying for admission to NTU, applicants are required to specify one (or more) of NTU's schools in which to study. Applicants are offered admission by the individual schools, which have varying admission criteria (after admission, it is possible to appeal for a transfer between schools). Applicants from Singapore must have graduated from a junior college or polytechnic. International students are required to have completed K-12 education; furthermore, as English is the medium of instruction at NTU, students from non-English speaking countries may be required to have an English language proficiency certificate such as IELTS or TOEFL.

Undergraduate tuition is heavily subsidised by the Government of Singapore. Singaporean citizens pay around 27 percent of the base tuition cost. A reduced subsidy is optionally available to Singaporean permanent residents and international students, but with a stipulation: the recipients are contractually required to work for a Singapore-based company for three years after graduation.

NTU also offers a variety of undergraduate scholarships to new as well as current students pursuing their full-time undergraduate studies in the university. Scholarships are generally awarded to students based on academic merit and good co-curricular records.

Post-graduate education
NTU has approximately 10,000 graduate students pursuing Master's degrees, doctorates, and other post-graduate degrees. The graduate student population is largely international.

The admission requirements for post-graduate studies vary with the school and the course of study. Several programmes require GRE or GMAT scores; typical minimum scores are 320 (GRE verbal/quantitative), 3.5 (GRE analytical), and 600 (GMAT), but these can vary widely between different schools. Applicants from non-English speaking countries are typically required to submit TOEFL or IELTS scores; typical minimum scores are 6.0 (IETL) and 90 (Internet-based TOEFL).

Clubs and communities
Currently, there are more than 100 student organisations in NTU.

University rankings
NTU was named the world's fastest-rising young university by the Times Higher Education in April 2015. NTU has been ranked 13th in the world and 2nd in Asia in the latest 2016 QS World University Rankings, for the second consecutive year. NTU also came in 1st overall in the ranking of young universities for the third consecutive year according to the 2016 QS Top 50 Under 50. In 2011, NTU became the first university in Asia to receive the maximum five stars under the QS Stars evaluation system, and the only one in Singapore to date.

QS World University Rankings by Faculty

In 2015, NTU's Faculty of Engineering and Technology was ranked 6th in the world and 2nd in Asia by the QS World University Rankings by Faculty 2015. NTU also has a research citation that is among the top four in the world, with its research output being ranked among the top three universities globally in Engineering by Essential Science Indicators of Thomson Reuters. In the 2015 QS World University Rankings by Faculty, NTU is ranked 22nd in the world for Social Sciences and Management, up 11 places from the previous year. This includes the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Business School and School of Humanities and Social Sciences. In the field of Natural Sciences, NTU's College of Science jumped 44 spots to rank 15th in the world while Art & Humanities leapt 41 places to emerge 45th globally.

In the recent QS World University Rankings by Subject published on 21 March 2016, NTU had 19 subjects in the world's top 50, with two subjects in the global top 10. It also came in first in Asia in Materials Science.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings

NTU is ranked joint 2nd in Asia in the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2016, a jump of 8 places from the previous year. In 2016, NTU rose to 54th position worldwide in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings with strong scores in all the categories measured, particularly for research, citations, international outlook as well as industry income and innovation. As a result, NTU rocketed a total of 120 places since 2011 in the THE rankings. NTU is also ranked 2nd best among the global young universities under 50 years old.

Academic Ranking of World Universities and other rankings

Independently, the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities published by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy that ranks universities' research performance and places a high weightage on the number of Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals won by a university’s alumni and faculty placed NTU 123rd worldwide and 2nd in Singapore. Nevertheless, the latest alternate ARWU ranking that excludes the weightage on Nobel Prizes and Field Medals actually ranked NTU 151-200th in 2015. Despite this, NTU's president have paradoxically voiced out in 2015 that the ARWU ranking methodology is inherently biased against young universities like NTU as it takes the awarding of Nobel Prizes and Field Medals into account.

NTU's Nanyang MBA is Singapore's No.1 MBA programme, having ranked 24th worldwide in the 2017 Financial Times Global MBA Rankings. For the 13th straight year, Nanyang Business School has been ranked the best in Singapore by The Economist. Also, NBS is placed 10th worldwide in the Financial Times’ (FT) rankings of the world’s top 100 Executive MBA (EMBA) programmes. Accounting research at NBS is rated 7th in the world and remained No. 1 in Asia by the Brigham Young University (BYU) Accounting Research Rankings released in April 2014. NTU Professor Tan Hun Tong is currently the world's top accounting researcher for the third year running while Professor Clive Lennox is ranked 7th in the world and 2nd in Asia. Notably, Professor Vijay Sethi was voted the world's best business professor as the sole recipient of the prestigious Business Professor of the Year award from The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in March 2013, beating top business professors from Harvard Business School, Wharton Business School and London Business School.

The S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies has been ranked second among university-affiliated think-tanks in Asia and 22nd internationally.

NTU has many multi-national programmes and initiatives with institutions worldwide. Some examples of key partners include MIT, Stanford University, Cornell University, Caltech, University of Washington, Carnegie Mellon University; world-class universities in Asia such as Beijing University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Waseda, IIT of India; European universities like Cambridge University, Imperial College London, Warwick University, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Karolinska Institutet, University of Mannheim, Heidelberg University and Technische Universität München; and Israeli Universities like Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Technion – Israel Institute of Technology

NTU is also the first Kauffman Campus outside the United States, spearheading entrepreneurship in Asia.

Degrees awarded by NTU
Bachelor's degrees:
 * Bachelor of Accountancy
 * Bachelor of Arts
 * Bachelor of Business
 * Bachelor of Communication Studies
 * Bachelor of Education
 * Bachelor of Engineering
 * Bachelor of Fine Arts
 * Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS)
 * Bachelor of Medicine (Chinese Medicine)
 * Bachelor of Science

Higher degrees:
 * Master of Accountancy
 * Master of Applied Science
 * Master of Arts
 * Master of Business
 * Master of Business Administration
 * Master of Communication Studies
 * Master of Education
 * Master of Educational Administration
 * Master of Engineering
 * Master of Mass Communication
 * Master of Public Administration
 * Master of Science
 * Master of Teaching
 * Doctor of Philosophy
 * Doctor in Education.

People's Action Party

 * Ang Mong Seng – Former MP
 * Intan Azura Mokhtar – MP, Assistant Professor at National Institute of Education
 * Lee Bee Wah – MP
 * Low Yen Ling – MP, Parliamentary Secretary
 * Masagos Zulkifli - MP, Minister for Environment & Water Resources
 * Sim Ann – MP, Minister of State
 * Inderjit Singh – Former MP
 * Teo Ser Luck – MP, Mayor and Minister of State
 * Yu-Foo Yee Shoon – Former MP and Minister of State
 * Zaqy Mohamad – MP

Workers Party of Singapore

 * Gerald Giam Yean Song - NCMP
 * Low Thia Khiang – MP, Secretary-General of the Workers Party of Singapore
 * Yee Jenn Jong – NCMP

Singapore Democratic Party

 * Cheo Chai Chen – former MP, now member of the National Solidarity Party

National Solidarity Party

 * Sebastian Teo Kway Huang – President of the National Solidarity Party

International politics

 * Edhie Baskoro Yudhoyono – former Indonesian MP, Secretary General of Democratic Party (Indonesia), son of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
 * Wee Ka Siong - Deputy President of the Malaysian Chinese Association and MP in the Dewan Rakyat

Public service and civil society

 * Azmoon Ahmad – Chairman, Association of Muslim Professionals
 * Major Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono - Tentara Nasional Indonesia, Chief of Operations in Kostrad, son of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
 * Ng Gek Boo – Assistant Director-General of International Labour Organisation
 * Ng Joo Hee – Commissioner of Police (Singapore)
 * Gen. Tito Karnavian - Indonesian National Police, former Head of Detachment 88, elite anti terror group in Indonesian police, former head of Jakarta Regional Police Division, now head of Indonesian National Police.

Business and technology

 * Shafie Shamsuddin – Managing Director, Carrefour Indonesia
 * Chade-Meng Tan – Jolly Good Fellow, Google Inc
 * Darren Tan Siew Peng – Chief Financial Officer Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation
 * Leo Chen Ou – Founder, Jumei International Holdings
 * Lim Chow Kiat - Chief Executive Officer, GIC Private Limited
 * Inderjit Singh - entrepreneur and former politician in Singapore's parliament representing the Ang Mo Kio GRC from 1996 to 2015.
 * Francis, XU PING - Dr & EMBA, Singapore Government Scholarship Winner, Board Chairman of Lanmei Eco Tech Group, FOLL member of University of Oxford, Member of Oxford Business Alumni Network, Alumnus of Guanghua School of Management of Peking University.

Academia and research

 * Chee Kheng Hoy – World expert on rubber tree research
 * Cheryl Marie Cordeiro – International Business and Relations Researcher in the University of Gothenburg and Miss Singapore Universe 1999
 * Ng Yew Kwang – Albert Winsemius Professor of Economics in NTU
 * Lee Hui Mien – Creator of the world's first spectacle frame made entirely of recycables

Arts and humanities

 * Zihan Loo – film director, actor, dancer
 * Yang Quee Yee – Malay and Chinese Linguist
 * Yap Koon Chan – author and literary activist

Media and entertainment

 * Vincy Chan – Cantopop singer
 * Lee Teng – television host
 * Ng Hui – actress
 * Rui En – actress
 * Joanne Peh – actress
 * Michelle Saram – actress
 * Vanessa Vanderstraaten – actress
 * Diana Ser – journalist, former Channel News Asia news presenter, actress, host
 * Stefanie Sun – singer
 * Alan Tern – actor
 * Jerry Yeo – actor
 * Zhu Zhiqiang – graphic designer, animator
 * Youyi - actress, television host

Sports

 * Dipna Lim Prasad – National Hurdler
 * C Kunalan - Former National Sportsman, and Educator at the National Institute of Education
 * Calvin Kang Li Loong - National Sprinter

Medicine, science and engineering

 * Bertil Andersson – Biochemistry
 * Freddy Boey – Materials Engineering
 * Balazs Gulyas – Neuroscience
 * Philip Ingham – Zebrafish models for Human diseases
 * Christopher G. Newhall – Volcanologist, co-creator of the Volcanic explosivity index
 * Daniela Rhodes – Structural and Molecular Biology
 * Kerry Sieh – Geology and Seismology
 * Paul Tapponnier – Neotectonics
 * Rudolph A. Marcus – Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 1992
 * Staffan Kjelleberg – Microbiology, Biofilms
 * Peter M.A. Sloot – Complex systems modelling
 * Anthony Gordon Fane – Membrane Technology
 * Joseph Wilfred Lakai - Earthquake Engineer
 * Lock Yue Chew - Physics

Humanities and social sciences

 * Grace Chia – Literature
 * Liang Wern Fook - Chinese Studies, Mandopop singer-songwriter, Xinyao pioneer
 * Lim Chong Yah – Economics, first Chairman of National Wages Council
 * Nadia Magnenat Thalmann - Computer graphics

Business and technology

 * Tan Hun Tong – World's top experimental accounting researcher
 * Vijay Sethi – First Economist Intelligence Unit Business Professor of the Year

Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information

 * Joseph Walther – Communication theorist
 * Richard Ling – Social consequences of mobile communication

S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies

 * Farish A. Noor – Political Scientist and Historian

Renaming controversy
Although NTU occupies the grounds of the former Nanyang University (NU), and has a similar name, it is not a direct continuation of that institution. In 1980, the Government of Singapore forcibly merged Nanyang University with the University of Singapore to form the present-day National University of Singapore (NUS). This was a source of significant discontent amongst NU students and alumni, because NU had been a Chinese-medium university, whereas the newly merged NUS was (and is) an English-medium university.

As NTU subsequently grew into a full university, various efforts were made to have it claim the Nanyang University mantle. In 1996, the alumni rolls of Nanyang University were transferred from NUS to NTU. In 1998, the prominent local calligrapher and poet Pan Shou, who had been the first vice-chancellor of Nanyang University, called for NTU to be renamed Nanyang University, as a way to "quieten the hearts of many" NU alumni. In 2003, this idea received further support from NTU president Su Guaning, during an interview with the Chinese-language paper Lianhe Zaobao. One reason offered for the renaming was that, by the mid-2000s, NTU no longer had a narrow focus on technical subjects, but had become a full university including studies in the humanities.

However, the NTU administration's renaming plans soon encountered significant push-back. One NU alumni, Zhu Yong-an, circulated the results of a straw poll in which NU alumni came out strongly against the idea; respondents complained that NTU could not provide "continuity" for the "murdered" Nanyang University. Finally, after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong weighed in on the affair, the administration dropped the idea quietly in 2006 and has not raised it since.

Tenural denial to Cherian George
In 2013, there was a debate over academic freedom in Singapore when Associate Professor Cherian George, an outspoken academic at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communications who had publicly criticised Singapore's system of media control and its ruling People’s Action Party. did not get tenured. Although George had been recommended for tenure by the Wee Kim Wee School, his application was turned down by a university-level committee which included representatives from the Government of Singapore. One of the reviewers for the tenure case, Cardiff University's professor Karin Wahl-Jorgensen, expressed outrage at NTU's decision, and George's thesis advisor, Stanford University's Theodore Glasser, raised doubts about "NTU's reputation as a university of international standing" and "NTU's commitment to academic freedom". Despite a petition against the tenure decision by students at the Wee Kim Wee School, George's appeal against the tenure decision was subsequently rejected by the university.