192 views

Over $14m to fund new scholarships at SMU

The scholarships will be funded by the newly-created Ian R. Taylor Memorial Fund.

The Singapore Management University’s Ian R. Taylor Memorial Fund (IRT-MF) will provide support for new scholarships, awards and programmes starting in the 2021-2022 academic year.

The fund is a gift from past and present staff of Vitol Asia, made in honour of the late Ian Roper Taylor, the former chief executive and chairman of the Vitol Group. It is worth a total of S$14m.

The IRT-MF will provide support such as scholarships worth $60,000 to $100,000 for undergraduates, yearly cash awards for leading graduates from Politics, Law & Economics majors, and support for international moot competitions.

The IRT-MF is said to commemorate the life of Taylor as an Oxford graduate and patron of young Asian talent.

“We would like to express our sincere appreciation to Mr Taylor’s family and our donors for setting up this Memorial Fund at SMU and entrusting it to SMU’s stewardship," SMU President Professor Lily Kong said. "The scholarships and awards supported by the Fund will further encourage our students to scale new heights of excellence to become individuals who have an independent mind, are dependable in deeds, think deeply and broadly, and who act to create value at home and abroad.” 

SMU also hinted at a future collaboration with the University of Oxford that will further “reflect the global visions of Mr Taylor.”
 

Join Singapore Business Review community
Join Singapore Business Review community
A NOTE FROM SINGAPORE BUSINESS REVIEW

Reaching the people who run Asia's businesses is harder than it used to be.

Inboxes are crowded. Attention is short. The executives you most want to reach — the founders, CFOs, and operators who actually move budgets — are the hardest to find through the usual channels. If you're building a company, a category, or a reputation, you already know this.

We've spent twenty years building the room they read. Singapore Business Review is where senior decision makers in Singapore and across Southeast Asia come for business coverage they can't get elsewhere — in print, online, and in person at the summits and roundtables we host across seven markets.

If you have something these readers should know about — a point of view worth publishing, a product worth their attention, an event worth their time — we'd like to hear what you're trying to do.

Exclusives

Singapore opens door to foreign stablecoins under tighter rules
Banks may need separate companies to issue stablecoins under the proposed framework.
Singapore's most notable architecture professionals under 40 of 2026
The honourees span five firms, with women in the majority and a combined portfolio that includes a $960m hospital campus.