ABOUT THE SMU SCHOOL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
A premier university in Asia, the Singapore Management University (SMU) is internationally recognised for its world-class research and distinguished teaching. Established in 2000, SMU’s mission is to generate leading-edge research with global impact and produce broad-based, creative and entrepreneurial leaders for the knowledge-based economy. SMU education is known for its highly interactive, collaborative and project-based approach to learning, and for its technologically enabled pedagogy of seminar-style teaching in small class sizes.
The School of Information Systems (SIS) is an exceptionally supportive and inspirational environment for academic scholarship and research, applied R&D projects, and innovative education initiatives. We currently have over 50 full-time faculty members working across five research areas.
- Data Science & Engineering
- Cybersecurity
- Intelligent Systems & Optimization
- Software & Cyber-Physical Systems
- Information Systems & Management
Our Research. Real-world industry sectors provide SIS with a testbed and laboratory for experimentation, as well as a fertile breeding ground for new ideas. Our faculty and students apply their research results to solve real problems in a variety of industry settings and to create IT applications and systems. At the same time, our faculty actively publish in top-quality Computer Science and Management Science conferences and journals. Our SIS Research Map gives a comprehensive listing of the topics that are of interest of us.
We are committed to supporting the development of our faculty. Besides career mentoring for junior faculty, their Ph.D. students are funded by the school rather than paid from their research grants. SIS faculty members are encouraged to collaborate on innovative research projects and also on integrative and interdisciplinary projects. SMU as well as Singapore government agencies, such as the National Research Foundation, provide generous support for high-quality research proposals.
A noteworthy example of our funded research is the Living Analytics Research Centre (LARC), operated jointly with Carnegie Mellon University; LARC focuses on building technologies for Social Media Sensing and Analytics, and applying them in Singapore’s Smart Nation initiatives. The school also hosts the LiveLabs Urban Lifestyle Innovation Platform, a city-scale research test-bed for researchers and organizations to run consumer behavioral trials and experiments with novel mobile services. In addition, SIS is a partner in the Fujtsu-SMU Urban Computing and Engineering Corporate Lab (UNICEN), which focuses on urban mobility, logistics, and traffic management. In the area of Information Security, SIS has a Secure Mobile Centre that conducts research into mobile device, cloud, and platform security.
Our Education. SIS has a Ph.D. in Information Systems programme with about 75 students. Ph.D. students can concentrate in any of our four computer science oriented research areas, or in our management science oriented Information Systems & Management research area. We encourage our doctoral students to be strong in their core area, as well as to do integrative work at the boundaries of two or more of the areas within the school, or at the boundaries of SIS and other SMU schools.
The School offers Master of IT in Business (MITB), a professionally oriented coursework programme, which has nearly 300 students. The programme supports a Financial Technology & Analytics track focusing on FinTech and the integration of Technology & Operations in Banking, an Analytics track focusing on applied analytics for business, consumer and social insights, as well as an Artificial Intelligence (AI) track that emphasizes building AI-enabled business applications.
Our professionally oriented B.Sc. (Information Systems) programme has well over 1,000 undergraduate students. The programme has been remarkably successful in demonstrating educational innovations and creating a culture of learning, establishing external linkages and partnerships with industry, government and the social sector, and with job placement. We have an entrepreneurial student body, and many SIS undergraduates have gone on to create or participate in start-ups.
