With the aim to aid commercialization of 16 research projects, 4 million Singapore dollars (2.8 million U. S. dollars) were granted Friday by Singapore's National Research Foundation (NRF).

The areas in which the grants have been awarded included projects pertaining to engineering, info-comm-technologies and life sciences.

A statement by NRF specified that a sum of up to 250,000 Singapore dollars (174,825 U. S. dollars) each will be received by these 16 projects, in order to enhance their inventions into prototypes, bringing them closer to commercialization.

It added: "This grant provides researchers with funding to enable them to carry out further development on their ideas that are technically feasible, with the aim of coming out with products or commercial applications."

Following this, the interested companies will then be able to acquire the resulting product or application, which can also be marketed by a new company.

Apart from this, it can also boost the investors' confidence to initiate a new company to commercialize the technology.

It should be noted that Singapore-based researchers submitted 91 proposals this time round from local varsities and polytechnics.

The National Framework for Innovation and Enterprise was announced by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last March, and this scheme is part of the same. Its motive is to support commercialization of technologies developed in the institutes of higher learning.