Survey, I guess. [Music]
The public space is essentially dominated by
the op-ed pieces and the surveys. It depends on what one expects of
IPS as a public institution. So far if the initial ambition was to provide some kind of independent
thinking about public policies in different areas, there isn't much evidence of that.
I
was in the group that had a long, I think one whole year of conversation on a monthly basis,
with Kishore as the chair. When then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong was thinking of setting
up IPS, and I think there are 20 of us. During that time, we had very wide-ranging discussion.
It's hard to remember now. Since then I think my impression is that the public contact with the
IPS is largely through the essay or through the op-ed pieces written by
various people at the IPS or the survey reports. There are some regular features like
post-elections surveys and and then of course the annual (Singapore) Perspectives conference.
That I think is the main impression now because a lot of the other works, I mean some of the
more closed-door participations, meetings and so on, discussions, doesn't quite
I mean, it's basically just in-house kind of work. I always have a question as to
how much influence it there really is on the word policy. I mean it's like,
there's a data collection, there's some analysis about general trends and I realised that
many of the research many of the surveys are actually funded by government ministries.
I guess how much of that work is inputted in public policy is unclear and unknown, I suppose,
to public. The government ministerial policy work is not public knowledge. So it's difficult to say
what is the impact of IPS through its work. A lot of the other work I with corporations and so on
is by membership only so it's like one doesn't really know what is happening. [Music]
If initial ambition was to provide some kind of independent thinking about
public policies in different areas, there isn't much evidence of that.
I think that the excessive dependence on Government funding really doesn't help to project
an independence of the institution. I think that on issues that are pretty close to the
government interests, rather than generating independent interests as such. [Music]
It's kind of hard to say because I think that even the S R Nathan lecture series so far has been,
I suppose in a way it is defined as always talking about promoting alternatives or I mean
projection of a future except for Wang Gungwu's lecture recently, more historical and humanities
directed. What is there to improve? I suppose it would be helpful I think for the institution to
gain greater credibility if it were to project itself a little bit more independently and deal
with some of the issues of greater concern that is not directly related to, not just overt or
reactive kind of research surveys, but generate some topics that it comes out of its own. I think
a projection of doing work that is not merely supplementary to government interests I suppose,
but given its dependency on funding I'm not sure how that's even possible. [Music]