Young universities that wish to rapidly improve their research performance and establish themselves as leading global players could do well to look to Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

The fastest-rising young institution in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, NTU has climbed 120 places between 2010-11 and 2016-17 to reach 54th?place in the table.

Su Guaning, former president of the university, said that its success was built on ¡°looking for opportunities and seizing them¡±.?NTU was, for example, quick to realise the significance of the ¡°rise of China¡± and to take advantage, he told THE.

It was ahead of the curve on this front, launching training and degree programmes in Chinese in the 1990s, including a course aimed at teaching market-oriented economics to?communist officials, Professor Su said.

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The number of Chinese master¡¯s programmes rose to six during his time as president, 2003 to 2011, he continued, which means that the institution now has a ¡°whole [cohort] of alumni in China¡±.

Professor Su also focused heavily on ¡°recruiting young people¡± when he became leader of the university, noting that ¡°only in that way can you have something remaining [of the institution] when you retire or go elsewhere¡±.

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Meanwhile, overhauling the institution¡¯s tenure system to establish research strength as a key criterion and extending the retirement age from 55 to 65 was crucial, according to Professor Su.

¡°We basically had a teaching university structure. When I first came in, some of my colleagues told me that they were told by some of the seniors, ¡®Don¡¯t bother doing research, you¡¯re wasting your time; just do your teaching and do well and have good life,¡¯¡± he said.?¡°You need to break out of constraints, otherwise you can burn all you want but the rocket will not take off.¡±

But, perhaps the most crucial factor contributing to Nanyang¡¯s rapid success was Professor Su¡¯s decision to appoint two deputies. One of these was Bertil Andersson, the current president, who became the university¡¯s first provost in 2007 and was tasked with establishing the new tenure system.

A key distinction that worked in Professor Andersson¡¯s favour during the hiring process was that as well as being chief executive of the European Science Foundation and former rector of?Link?ping University?in Sweden, he had been a member and later chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

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¡°So when he announces judgement on our tenure process, and says, ¡®This guy passed, that guy did not¡¯, it is very hard to challenge him. If he can judge the Nobel prize, I think he can judge tenure,¡± Professor Su said.

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When he first took the job at NTU,?Professor Andersson joked that?Europe ¡°talks too much¡± about investing in universities and research, while Singapore ¡°acts¡±. Last year, he admitted that his joke had in fact ¡°become a reality¡±.

Professor Su also highlighted the benefits of having a senior leadership team in which staff have a similar vision for the institution but ¡°quite different characters¡±.

¡°We complement each other and essentially we tried to operate as a whole,¡± he said, adding that this meant that there was ¡°a continuum between my presidency¡± and Professor Andersson¡¯s.

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He added that the ¡°hidden agenda¡± during his leadership was that ¡°Singapore needs two universities of roughly competitive standing to do well¡± ¨C the other, alongside NTU, being the National University of Singapore.

¡°If you look around the world, the best universities usually have somebody competing with them on a similar level. If you take Stanford, you have Berkeley. Take Cambridge, you have Oxford. Take Harvard, you have MIT,¡± he said.

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NTU now has the ¡°respect¡± to be seen as being on a similar level to NUS, said Professor Su, ¡°so we are quite happy¡±.

ellie.bothwell@timeshighereducation.com