A University in a Great City.
A City in a Great University.
SMU is a premier university in Asia internationally recognised for its world-class research and distinguished teaching. SMU's beautiful city campus is located in Singapore's central business district and thriving heritage and cultural districts, with strategic linkages to business, government and the wider community. The University is home to more than 12,000 students from Singapore, Asia and all over the world, as well as a 36,000-strong alumni network globally.

The Singapore Management University (SMU) is a publicly-funded private university in Singapore. Founded in 2000, SMU is the third oldest autonomous university in the country, and models its education after the Wharton School. It is also the only university in Singapore with a city campus. The university was also awarded triple accreditation by AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA.

SMU enrols about 10,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students, offering undergraduate and graduate degree programmes in accountancy, business administration, business analytics, economics, financial services, information systems management, law, and the social sciences.

The university is organised into 8 schools; School of Accountancy (SOA), Lee Kong Chian School of Business (LKCSB), School of Economics (SOE), School of Computing and Information Systems (SCIS), Yong Pung How School of Law (YPHSL), School of Social Sciences (SOSS), College of Integrative Studies (CIS) and the new College of Graduate Research Studies (CGRS).

History

The former Raffles College, the site of SMU's first campus
In 1997, the Government of Singapore began considering setting up a third university in Singapore. Ho Kwon Ping, a Singaporean business entrepreneur, was appointed to chair the task-force which determined that the new institution would follow the American university system featuring a more flexible broad-based education. Following a review of undergraduate business schools to serve as a model for SMU, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania emerged as the best candidate. The Wharton-SMU agreement was signed in February 1999 followed in June by the Wharton-SMU Research Center collaboration.

In July 1999, Janice Bellace, then Deputy Dean of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, commenced a two-year term as SMU's first president alongside founding provost, Tan Chin Tiong. In 2000, SMU made its first home at the former Raffles College (now the National University of Singapore's Bukit Timah campus) on Evans Road near Hwa Chong Institution. The campus, first opened in 1929, had already been home to several institutions before SMU. In 2001, SMU upgraded and occupied the main campus facilities, balancing the need to refit and refurbish it with facilities while preserving the heritage of colonial architecture. From 2001 to 2004, Ronald Frank served as SMU's second president and was succeeded by Howard Hunter.

Between 2000 and 2005, SMU saw the formation of four schools, its library and three centres of excellence as well as the graduation of the first batch of its students. After that, SMU moved from its Bukit Timah campus to its current campus in the Bugis-Bras Basah district. Since then, SMU has expanded, with the establishment of its School of Law in 2007 and the restructuring of its School of Economics and Social Sciences into two separate schools: the School of Economics and the School of Social Sciences.

In 2010, Yong Pung How and Arnoud De Meyer took over the positions of SMU Chancellor and President from Richard Hu and Howard Hunter respectively. and President In 2015, J. Y. Pillay replaced Yong as SMU's Chancellor while Lily Kong succeeded De Meyer as SMU's president in January 2019. Lim Chee Onn succeeded J. Y. Pillay as Chancellor in August that year.