At a Glance
• Profiles of publicly supported S&T organizations and programs
• Nanotechnology playing a critical role across the board
• Pushing innovation through interdisciplinary and international collaboration
• Transforming Taiwan into a global cloud-computing nerve center
Global surveys give Taiwan high scores for its science and technology (S&T) environment and innovation. Still, its S&T community, including government-supported institutions, universities and private enterprises, are striving to embrace creativity as the primary force that will enable them to remain dynamic and competitive.
Collaboration between these sectors is producing valuable fruits. They range from powerful next-generation computer processors and nano-scale computer memory units to pharmaceutical and radiological therapies for cancer, and from satellites that boost the accuracy of mete-orological and climatic analyses to advances in wireless and broadband Internet communications that greatly expand vistas for e-learning and access to valuable software resources.A critical factor in Taiwan’s fast-paced evolution over the past six decades, from an impoverished agrarian economy to a prosperous knowledge-based economy, has been government development programs. This chapter focuses on the contributions of such programs to Taiwan’s maturing research and development capabilities.