15th S R Nathan Fellow – Lily Kong
Professor Lily Kong has been President of Singapore Management University (SMU) since 2019. She is the fifth President and the first Singaporean to lead the 24-year-old university. She is also the first Singaporean woman to serve as President of any university in Singapore. She previously served as Provost of SMU from 2015 to 2018, making her the first woman to hold the position of Provost at any university in Singapore. Before joining SMU, she held various senior management roles at the National University of Singapore.
Since becoming SMU President, Professor Kong has led SMU in identifying Digital Transformation, Sustainable Living, and Growth in Asia as three key strategic priorities. These priorities address the future needs of Singapore, the regional economy and community, position students well for the future, and align with SMU’s unique strengths. Under her leadership, SMU has also seen growth in student enrolment, research grant income, and donor support. The university has further increased its engagement with industry and university partners locally and internationally, and launched overseas centres in Jakarta in 2022, Bangkok in 2023 and Ho Chi Minh City in 2024, to deepen SMU’s regional engagements. Through the strengthening of its education, research and engagement agendas, SMU has increasingly emphasised the importance of universities in making meaningful impact on economy, society and polity.
An award-winning researcher and teacher, Professor Kong has received numerous international awards, including the Commonwealth Fellowship Award, the Fulbright Fellowship Award, the Robert Stoddard Award from the Association of American Geographers for her work in the geographies of religion, and the Victoria Medal from the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) for conspicuous merit in social, cultural and urban geographical research. In a global study by Stanford University (2020), Professor Kong was identified as among the world’s top 1% of scientists in the field of Geography. These accolades acknowledge her wide-ranging and impactful research on urban transformations, and social and cultural change in Asian cities. In particular, she has published a large body of work on inter-communal relations and social cohesion, national identity, cultural policy and cultural industries, creative cities and creative economy, urban heritage and conservation, smart cities, migration and education.
Professor Kong was conferred the Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2006 and Public Service Star (Bintang Bakti Masyarakat) award in 2020 as part of Singapore’s National Day Awards. She was recognised in Forbes Asia’s Power Businesswomen list (2020), Forbes inaugural 50 over 50 (Asia 2022) and Tatler’s Asia’s Most Influential (2022). Professor Kong was inducted into Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame in 2022.
15th IPS-Nathan Lecture Series — Universities Reinvented: Shaping Legacy and Impact for a New World
In this three-part lecture series, President of Singapore Management University and 15th S R Nathan Fellow Professor Lily Kong will reflect on the idea of the university and how it has evolved over time. She will examine the public value of universities, and the potential and reality of their contributions to societal development. In the first lecture entitled “Through the Looking Glass: Insights into the Origin and Evolution of Universities”, she illustrates how, throughout history, the university has reflected changing societal contexts. The contemporary university is no different — a condition of our post-industrial, post-truth world. In the second lecture entitled “At the Crossroads: Universities for the 100-Year Life”, Prof Kong examines what a university stands for if humanity contemplates and confronts the very real possibility of a 100-year life. The relevance of the university will of necessity extend beyond the narrow slice of three to four years in the first of four quartiles in human life. In her third lecture, she invites discussion about the responsibility of universities — as brain trust — to the world beyond its walls. Entitled “Beyond the Ivory Tower: Research and the Dilemmas of Quality and Relevance”, she addresses questions of misinformation, manipulation, and misconduct in research, but also, more optimistically, research that is creative, catalytic, and consequential.
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