To establish Singapore at forefront of the interactive media revolution worldwide and in the Asia Pacific region and to be a link for cutting edge creative media research laboratories in NUS.

By exploring commercially creative interactive media research which will assist in development of creative industries and cultural exuberance for Singapore and creating human technology which involves the development of new interfaces to make machines more natural, intuitive and easy to use, the IDM Network has as its aim to bring about this vision and bring the future of new media into reality.

It is also an aim to make Singapore one of the main global cross-points and nuclei of new media and the exporter of new media in the Asia Pacific region

In the last few decades, because of the advances of digital technologies and interaction technologies, several new media emerged. The representative examples are mobile phones and video games. By using these media, people interact with computers and/or other people and are engaged into new type of communications/interactions. These new type of communications and interactions have significantly changed our way of communications and thus our life.

The media of combining digital and interaction technologies is known as “Interactive Digital Media (IDM).” More and more IDM would emerge in the coming years and these would have significant effects to our society and life in the twenty-first century. Therefore we believe that it is the responsibility of people in academia to carry out interdisciplinary research that aim at the development of next generation IDM, taking social/psychological aspects into consideration in addition to engineering aspect. This is the reason we have established an interdisciplinary institute called: Digital & Interactive Media Institute (IDMI) in NUS.

The mission of IDMI is:

1. To facilitate interdisciplinary research between natural science and social science as the collaboration of these two areas is the key for the success of IDM.

NUS offers a broad-based curriculum underscored by multi-disciplinary courses and cross-faculty enrichment. There are 13 faculties offering courses from architecture to medicine to music. A special feature of NUS education is the global dimension of its courses in partnership with some of the world's best institutions. NUS also enjoys a close teaching-research association with 13 national-level, 11 university-level and 80 faculty-based research institutes and centres. Research activities are strategic and robust, and a 'no walls' collaborative culture forms the bedrock of NUS' research-intensive vibrancy.   A spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation promotes creative enterprise university-wide. This is aided by a venture support eco-system that helps students, staff and alumni nurture the development of start-ups into regional and global companies.  

NUS plays an active role in international academic networks such as the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU) and Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU). It is ranked amongst the best universities in the world, and is well-regarded for disciplines such as Technology, Biomedicine and the Social Sciences.