Collaboration
UK-Taiwan Innovative Industries Programme
The UK-Taiwan Innovative Industries Programme (UKTW I2P) was launched in late March, aiming to strengthen UK-Taiwan R&D collaboration in key areas such as biotechnology, AI, robotics, clean energy, and autonomous vehicles by funding Taiwanese researchers to conduct projects at UK universities and institutes. ITRI, working closely with the British Office Taipei, is the key delivery partner of this program.
The Launch Event of the UK-Taiwan Innovative Industries Programme took place in Taipei this March.
Professor Robin Grimes, Chief Scientific Adviser of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, indicated that the UK government will fund £200,000 (NT$8 million) in the first year of the program to help increase bilateral cooperation. The bulk of the funding will go to support Taiwanese researchers seeking to conduct research in the UK, with additional funding for sector analysis and bilateral visits.
“We have designed UKTW I2P to help Taiwanese researchers connect with UK excellence in science and innovation because we believe international collaboration is vital to cutting-edge R&D,” said British Representative in Taiwan Catherine Nettleton.
Then-EVP of ITRI C.T. Liu stated that as the global economy is moving rapidly and massively toward individualized applications with solutions that demand deep and broad integration between business partners, the UK-TW Innovative Industries Programme signifies an exciting milestone. “Thanks to the efforts of the British Office Taipei, the UK-Taiwan partnership has made enormous progress over the past half year,” he said.
Professor Robin Grimes, Chief Scientific Adviser of the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, visited ITRI GuangFu Innovation Campus on March 9, 2018.
Professor Grimes has visited Taiwan three times in the last two years. In his visit to ITRI this March, he played chess and had a cup of tea with ITRI’s intelligent vision system robot. Professor Grimes commented that he was impressed with ITRI’s advanced technological developments and enjoyed himself in learning about innovations which are very important to the UK, for instance, autonomous vehicle technology and electric vehicle drivetrains. He was confident that there would be much for Taiwan and the UK to collaborate on.