Social Sciences and Technology

The Social Sciences and Technology Horizontal Technology Coordinating Office (SST HTCO) seeks to develop A*STAR’s social and behavioural science capabilities, through an integration of social-behavioural approaches with technological innovations, to contribute to national priorities of strategic importance.

Social and behavioural science is an area of growing interest and relevance in Singapore and around the world.

Many of the challenges facing societies today are complex, multi-faceted, and inherently behavioural in nature, and thus require solutions that take these issues into account. New innovations are needed that integrate social sciences with digital technology, such as those that make it possible to gain insights about people’s thoughts, feelings, and actions. Together with recent advances and new ways in which people interact with one another, such innovations can leverage fresh insights about people, obtained through new tools and data sources that these advances provide.

SST HTCO is a coordinating entity, supported by research performers across A*STAR, with the majority coming from the Social & Cognitive Computing and Systems Science departments from the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC), and the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS). Our researchers working on relevant areas of R&D and enabling technologies come from several other A*STAR research institutes, including, but not limited to, the Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R), the Institute for Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), and the Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech). SST HTCO helps coordinate relevant research activities across A*STAR, through various activities and engagements, such as roundtable discussions, workshops, regular townhalls and research seminars to build awareness and promote collaborations across the board.

About Us

Mission

SST HTCO will serve as a one-stop platform to effectively translate A*STAR technologies and capabilities into solutions informed by the social sciences that address strategic. The HTCO seeks to:

Build expertise and lead the planning, implementation, and communication of social sciences R&D across A*STAR research institutes.
Connect A*STAR capabilities and researchers with appropriate opportunities, resources, and partners, both internally within A*STAR, and externally, across the ecosystem.