The former IPAL (Image Processing and Application Laboratory) was formed in 1998 as a special overseas CNRS (French National Research Center) laboratory to manage research collaboration projects among CNRS, School of Computing of NUS (National University of Singapore), and I2R (Institute for Infocomm Research) of A*STAR (then Kent Ridge Digital Labs and National Science and Technology Board respectively).
The new International Mixed Research Unit (UMI 2955) IPAL (Image Perception, Access and Language), formally established in Jan 2007 for an initial period of 4 years, aims to bring sustainable benefits to both French and Singapore Infocomm and Media research communities, highlighted as follows:
- Synergy between French and Singapore research scientists and students, which will firmly establish long-term scientific collaboration relationship between the two countries;
- An entrance for Singapore research scientists to the French and EU scientific and technological networks and forums;
- A window for French research scientists to understand the dynamic and vibrant research culture and operations in a high-growth Asia economy such as Singapore and to bridge to other Asia nations;
- Creation of intellectual properties related to Infocomm and Media technologies, mainly in the form of high-quality international publications and innovative research prototypes;
- Training of PhD students from France and Singapore and to a lesser extent, Master (of Science and Engineering) students and final year undergraduates, and both scientific and cultural exposure for the students (future research and technology leaders).
In the near future, IPAL may evolve to embrace additional Singaporean-French collaboration areas including but not limited to real-time systems and network, programming languages & security, and interactive digital media etc, beyond the existing areas on mobile access to information and medical image analysis/access.
