The National Research Foundation (NRF) is a department within the Prime Minister's Office, and we set the national direction for research, innovation and enterprise (RIE) by developing policies, plans and strategies; funding strategic initiatives that strengthen our scientific and technological capabilities, grow our RIE talent base, and achieve economic and national impact; and fostering RIE collaboration in Singapore and internationally.

The internship opportunity will provide first-hand exposure to Public Service and Singapore's RIE ecosystem. During the internship period, you will be exposed to these areas: Singapore has nurtured a vibrant startup ecosystem for general tech (e.g. SaaS-based, digital) startups, but our deep tech startup ecosystem is still nascent. A key gap is the lack of deep tech entrepreneurs, who not only needs to understand the science, but also be able to bring the technology to market. This project will require the intern to study successful international programmes and initiatives in cultivating deep tech entrepreneurs. Thereafter, the intern will also understand the landscape of deep tech entrepreneurship programmes which our ecosystem offers and make recommendations on whether we should enhance existing programmes or start new ones to strengthen our pipeline of deep tech entrepreneurs.

Internship requirements: • This full time internship is for 3 to 4 months, starting no later than June 2026 and ending no later than September 2026.

The National Research Foundation (NRF) was set up on 1 January 2006 as a department under the Prime Minister's Office. It was set up to perform the following: a) To provide secretariat support to the Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council (RIEC), chaired by the Senior Minister; b) To coordinate the research of different agencies within the larger national framework in order to provide a coherent strategic overview and direction; c) To develop policies and plans to implement the five strategic thrusts for the national R&D agenda; and d) To implement national research, innovation and enterprise strategies approved by the RIEC, and to allocate funding to programmes that meet NRF's strategic objectives.