We are grateful to Mr Tan Soon Hock for his invitation to clarify who were interviewed in the Institute of Policy Studies' (IPS) survey on emigration attitudes of young Singaporeans (Who are 'locals' in IPS survey?; Oct 6).

We interviewed 2,013 Singapore citizens, aged 19 to 30 and living in Singapore.

Details about the sample are on IPS' website along with its findings: https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/ips/news/details/ips-survey-on-emigration-att…

Mr Tan will note that a good deal of analysis was put into the study.

We did three levels of comparison.

The first was with the results of the same survey but conducted in 2010 to look at shifts in attitudes.

Then we conducted other background work to confirm the thrust of our analysis.

The second comparison was with free-form responses to the survey, for which we attempted some cutting-edge, computer-based experimental analysis, and this took time.

Third, two of us were involved in another study on Singaporeans living abroad, which also provided us with a more complete look at emigration attitudes (Study to find out mindsets of overseas Singaporeans; May 16, 2017).

A glance through our website will show that we and the rest of our colleagues run several research projects at any one time.

We hope that sound social research can be given the time it needs.

Gillian Koh (Dr)

Debbie Soon (Ms)

Leong Chan-Hoong (Dr)

Institute of Policy Studies

National University of Singapore