NSC to hold sci-tech meet

By Lee I-chia The National Science Council (NSC) is to hold its first science and technology development consultation meeting on Monday and Tuesday, inviting top academics and specialists from the business sectors to discuss three main issues. As the council will be become the Ministry of Science and Technology next year, National Science Council Minister Cyrus Chu (朱敬一) yesterday said the meeting will mark the first step of its transformation. The Executive Yuan's Science and Technology Advisory Group, which consists of academics and specialists and holds annual meetings to provide professional advice, is to be transformed into the Executive Yuan's Board of Science and Technology, with the heads of ministries for making policy decisions, after the government reform that sees the council upgraded, Chu said. The council decided to hold the science and technology development consultation meetings in order to make up for the lack of a professional consultation role in next year's government reform, he said. Chu said the first meeting will focus on three main issues: How to improve the linkage between the upstream of learning and research with the downstream of industrial production; how to drive top-bottom science and technology programs and how to solve the problem of insufficient high-technology talent in Taiwan. "Academics have suggested that National Science and Technology Programs should have very clear visions of their goals, and also create deep and long-term impacts," Chu said, adding the programs will be re-evaluated on Monday and Tuesday in addition to discussions on how they should be enforced after the government reform. Among the 17 committee members invited to the meeting are Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), Academia Sinica's academician Michael Lai (賴明詔), former Academia Sinica vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁), dean of National Taiwan University's College of Medicine Yang Pan-chyr (楊泮池) and other academics from Taiwan and overseas. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co chairman Morris Chang (張忠謀) and Stan Shih (施振榮), chairman of iD SoftCapital and the founder of Acer Group will also attend the meeting. Chu said decisions made at the meeting will become strategy reference for the council and will also be included for further discussion at the 9th annual National Science and Technology Conference, scheduled for December this year.