In a city renowned for its world-class dining and drinking, the eponymous Singapore prize shines a light on some of the country’s most creative and talented culinary talent. The award was launched in 2022 by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in partnership with Singapore’s top universities — NTU, SUTD, SMU and NUS.

The bond-free scholarship is open to international students with excellent academic undergraduate and postgraduate results who wish to undertake a full-time doctoral programme in Singapore. Applicants must also demonstrate strong interest in doing research leading to a PhD or EngD degree at one of the partner universities. The award covers tuition fees, living expenses and a stipend for up to four years.

British Prince William arrived in Singapore on November 6 for a visit focused on the Earthshot Prize, an initiative of his Royal Foundation charity that promotes innovative technologies and solutions to global warming. Announcing the winners at a ceremony in downtown Singapore, the prince said that “the light of optimism burns bright in our five Earthshot finalists”.

These innovators, working on projects including creating a cleaner lithium-ion battery for electric cars and tightening ocean enforcement to end illegal fishing and support conservation, received a share of $1 million each. “The prize is not just about money, it’s about enabling these brilliant minds to accelerate their work and take action to repair our planet,” the prince added.

Other winners included Shubigi Rao, whose Pulp III: An Intimate Inventory Of The Banished Book (2022) won the prize for best English literary nonfiction. This is the third instalment of Rao’s decade-long project examining banned books. She is the first woman to win this category in the prize’s history. A new category this year was the English comic or graphic novel, which went to Kenfoo for Cockman (2022), a story about a chicken from another dimension stranded in human form on Earth.

The other prize of the night was the biennial Singapore Literature Prize, which awarded 12 authors and translators across the nation’s four languages. The winners were selected from 43 entries in the English, Malay, Chinese and Tamil. The award ceremony was held at the Victoria Theatre and was hosted by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who presented an achievement award to late Malay author Suratman Markasan.

Other highlights of the night were performances by musical artists Johari Bahar and Tan Xin Yue and dancers Chandrasekaran and Wei Chien. Also announced was a new partnership between the Singapore Book Council and the National Library Board for a reading and writing promotion called the Reading for Our Future campaign, which will run until 2021. The organisers hope it will be the start of a long-term effort to build a culture of reading and writing in Singapore. The campaign will feature workshops, community reads and a series of events at the National Library Board’s flagship store. This will be followed by a series of activities at community libraries around the island.