Associate Professor Han Fei, vice dean of its mathematics faculty, speaking at the Hanoi–Singapore Mathematics Conference held on April 4 and 5 by the NUS and the Vietnam Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics, encouraged Vietnamese students to apply for advanced mathematics programs, particularly at the doctoral level.

He said the faculty currently has around 120 PhD candidates, but only three to five are Vietnamese, a figure that he believes does not reflect Vietnam’s population size or academic potential. "We really like Vietnamese students. Highly educated, smart, work hard, and good attitude." He expressed the hope that more Vietnamese doctoral candidates would enroll.

He said students trained at NUS would gain advanced research skills and could contribute to Vietnam’s development, while also strengthening the university’s research output and multicultural environment. He highlighted several programs available to Vietnamese applicants, including the PhD in mathematics and three master’s programs in mathematics, quantitative finance and data science and machine learning.

Campus of National University of Singapore. Photo courtesy of the university

Beyond pure mathematics, NUS focuses its teaching and research on applied fields such as data science, bioinformatics, computational science, numerical analysis, optimization, and image processing. PhD candidates receive full tuition waivers, a monthly stipend of around S$4,000 (US$3,116) and up to S$10,000 in funding for international conferences and summer schools.

Those awarded scholarships might get an additional S$4,100–S$4,300 per month. Applicants for the January intake must submit documents by May 15.

Master’s students are required to pay tuition fees, but those from partner institutions like the Vietnam National University, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and the Hanoi University of Science and Technology can apply for the NUS ASEAN Master’s Scholarship for tuition coverage.

The early application deadline this year is July 15.

NUS ranked eighth globally in the 2026 QS World University Rankings and 17th in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. It placed joint eighth with U.K.’s Imperial College London in the QS subject rankings for mathematics.

Professor Dinh Tien Cuong, a member of VIASM’s scientific council, said Singapore’s development in science and technology has accelerated rapidly. Compared to when he began working there 11 years ago, more international students from Europe and the U.S. are now choosing to study in Singapore, rather than only those from Asia.

Tran Chieu Minh, a professor in the NUS mathematics department, said Vietnamese students are capable of competing with top peers at the university, adding that he hoped for stronger academic collaboration between NUS and institutions in Vietnam.