RESEARCH ADMINISTRATION

The key role of the OAA is to bring together established GIS scientists with early career researchers (ECRs) at various stages of their scientific career: attachment students, undergraduate honours students, graduate students, and post-doctoral fellows. Our goal is to facilitate the training of these ECRs so that they develop their scientific skills and careers. We also coordinate outreach activities such as open houses or mentorship programmes for local junior college students and organise visits of foreign university programmes keen to learn about the research at the GIS. OAA also organises internal weekly research updates and scientific seminars by local and overseas speakers.

The OCC is responsible for communicating, protecting and maintaining the institute’s corporate image, identity and branding which is crucial to the relationship-building process with our international scientific colleagues, collaborators, governments, employees, suppliers and contractors, and the general public. To this end, the OCC manages and executes the external and internal communication channels that flow through the institute, such as the corporate website, intranet, corporate brochure and other corporate paraphernalia. As the GIS logo is our most valuable visual asset and brand identity, we oversee its proper use and deployment.

The OCC manages and maintains good relations with the media. We write and publish press releases, and handle media conferences and media interviews to garner record positive media mentions. We organise, manage and handle all of the institute’s corporate and ministerial visitors, both local and overseas.

The Office of Facility Planning & Laboratory Safety provides a safe and conducive environment for our researchers to conduct their work. We provide operational support in areas such as air-conditioning, mechanical ventilation and electrical power supply, as well as handle security, housekeeping and pest control matters. This is to ensure the safe and efficient operation of mechanical and electrical plant equipment (including common laboratory equipment), and to safeguard the health and safety of our staff.

We also work closely with critical corporate and scientific units to understand their processes, identify potential risks, and provide solutions to manage and mitigate those risks through robust business continuity plans. Our goal is to ensure that GIS has the ability to effectively and efficiently respond during a crisis.

The OF aims to provide value-added and quality financial/accounting services to support GIS in its bid to foster world-class scientific research and development.
Some of the activities handled by OF are:

• Provision of timely and accurate monthly financial reporting
• Monitoring of the availability of funds (funds management)
• Monitoring of cash flow
• Management of treasury function
• Preparation of yearly financial budgets
• Preparation of project management reports and maintenance of the project system in the SAP (Systems Applications and Products)
• Processing of timely payments to vendors and staff
• Management of fixed assets

The Office of Grant Management (OGM) provides pre- and post-award administrative support for competitive research grants received from both local and overseas funding agencies. The office is responsible for liaising with major funding agencies on funding opportunities, grant procedures and guidelines, and working closely with principal investigators to ensure compliance with legal and regulatory requirements, and smooth execution of funded projects at every stage of the grant lifecycle. OGM also facilitates numerous multi-institutional collaborations in various areas such as budget planning and disbursement of fund, consolidation of application package and reports, and establishing research collaboration agreements. Together with the scientists, we strive to strengthen GIS’ capacity in securing financial resources to grow and maintain our research efforts, and to pursue more ground-breaking and impactful research.

The OHR is responsible for recruitment, staff remuneration and benefits, organisation development, training and coaching, performance management, policy management, and employee relations.
Advocating for both the institute as well as for our staff members, we work in close tandem with the human resources of A*STAR and with our scientific foci and non-scientific offices to achieve a job-match for all staff, in order that each individual may be incorporated well into the fabric of the GIS outfit and contribute effectively towards the overall success of the institute.

The OP is responsible for all purchasing matters and is the central archival of purchasing-related contract documents. Specifically, we handle the raising of purchase orders, and tenders for big ticket items, through the Systems Applications and Products (SAP) system to external venders. We also support web orders to the A*STAR Biopolis Shared Facility (BSF) Supply Centre. Our purchasing workflow strictly adheres to the A*Star Financial Policies & Procedures (FPP).

The Office of Research IT is responsible for the infrastructure, network and hardware that are required for GIS to operate as a world-class research institute. Our activities range from end-user computing (hardware deployment, installation, troubleshooting) to connectivity (wired, wireless, server access) and managing large-scale computing environments (high-performance clusters, storage drives, data centre). We support resources that are used for scientific analysis in national programmes and large scale international collaborations.

To ensure the smooth-running of laboratory operations and activities, the Office of Research Operations strategically plans and manages the laboratory and office space within GIS, while maintaining a cost-effective budget. We also manage and monitor all equipment assets, ensuring that they are utilised efficiently, and undergo proper maintenance and asset-tracking.

The ORPM plans, organises and manages the institute’s corporate events such as international scientific conferences and symposiums. It also provides resources and support to maintain a scientific library as well as e-journal subscriptions for research references. The ORPM evaluates and awards external sponsorship requests.

The ORPM promotes and maintains a conducive work environment for all members of the GIS family. This includes sourcing for and maintaining the landscaping and artwork within the premises of the institute. We also provide reception and administrative support, and maintain the boardroom and meeting rooms, refreshment requirements, and pantry and stationery supplies. We source for suitable accommodation and flight requirements for the institute’s international visitors.

GIS applies our state-of-the-art genome technologies to develop novel diagnostics and pioneering medicines. In this context, the OSA provides a pathway for managing academic/business-related matters and business operations, to ensure strategic alignment with our partners. We serve as a dynamic bridge between the GIS laboratories, academic partners and industry to make certain that promising new technologies and findings are translated into successful products and services that benefit society, both in Singapore and worldwide. This is achieved by: building research collaborations with industry around our research projects; fostering collaborations with clinicians and researchers; stimulating technology development and innovation within the GIS and securing all necessary protection of the resulting intellectual property; licensing agreements, establishing new ventures and building value around GIS innovations; and reaching out to external funding bodies both in Singapore and overseas. We oversee and manage our flagship programmes in diagnostics for pathogens and cancer, cancer treatment and in personalised genomic medicine, and also continue to evaluate and search for promising opportunities arising from scientific projects within the GIS or with academic, industrial, biotechnology and pharmaceutical partners.

Alex TAN Zhenpeng
Deputy Director
Email: alex_tan_zhenpeng@gis.a-star.edu.sg

The Office of Training & Diversity organises scientific and non-scientific training for early-career scientists. The scientific training includes courses to strengthen staff’s science communication, scientific training and critical thinking skills (including scientific writing, grant writing and graphic skills) to enable them to effectively communicate their science to other scientists and to the broader public. We also hold computational classes for interested wet-bench staff to equip them with analytical skillsets. Additionally, we organise non-scientific training activities, including career talks, to expose our early-career scientists to scientific careers and beyond. We also provide food budgets to encourage self-organisation of scientific activities among early-career scientists to encourage scientific discussions and peer support.

GIS embraces diversity and inclusivity as an institute. We suggest and implement initiatives to make GIS a more diverse and family-friendly institute, including having a nursing room for nursing mothers, having family-friendly policies for pregnant and working parents, and in future, implementing a childcare room over the weekends to support working parents.