Universities Reinvented: Shaping Legacy and Impact for a New World

Professor Lily Kong is the Institute of Policy Studies’ 15th S R Nathan Fellow for the Study of Singapore. This book is an edited collection of her three IPS-Nathan Lectures, delivered from October to November 2024, and includes highlights of her question-and-answer segments with our audience.Professor Kong reflects on the idea of the university and how it has evolved over time. Through the three lectures, she examines the public value of universities and the potential and reality of their contributions to societal development. Prof Kong started with illustrating how, throughout history, the university has reflected changing societal contexts. The contemporary university is no different. In her second lecture, she examines what a university stands for if humanity contemplates and confronts the very real possibility of a 100-year life. Finally, she invites discussion about the responsibility of universities — as brain trust — to the world beyond its walls. The third lecture addresses questions of misinformation, manipulation, and misconduct in research, but also, more optimistically, research that is creative, catalytic, and consequential.