Singapore - Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) refuted accusations by a prestigious US university that it failed to meet its side of the bargain in supporting Johns Hopkins University's research arm, news reports said on Tuesday.
The decision to wind down the facility after eight years in Singapore was 'not taken hastily and was based on nearly three years of monitoring and scrutiny,' The Straits Times quoted Dr Andre Wan, director of A*Star's biomedical research council, as saying.
The research facility failed to attract top scientists and had not met eight out of 13 performance benchmarks with the 83 million Singapore dollars (53 million US dollars) in funding, A*Star said.
The Division of Johns Hopkins Singapore (DJHS) is to be closed within 12 months.
The Baltimore, Maryland-based university was quoted as saying that A*Star had not met its 'financial and educational obligations.'
The closure was expected to leave dozens and faculty and staff without jobs and disrupt the education of four graduate students who had been offered places.
The university said this was a 'reputational issue' for Singapore and A*Star.
The city-state has been aiming to achieve the status of a major research centre and has attracted many well known specialists from abroad.
Dr Edison Liu, chairman of the scientific advisory committee appointed by DJHS, said he hoped that 'cooler heads would prevail' so that two great institutions would not fight each other.
© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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