New Program Promotes Collaboration between Industry and University

NTU formally launched the NTU Global Research and Industry Alliance on December 20, 2017.

The Global Research and Industry Alliance (GLORIA) is a program that was launched by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2017 to facilitate close collaboration between business and university research programs with the goal of enhancing the nation’s economic vitality.

The honored guests invited to attend the opening ceremony included Taiwan’s most influential business figures, including Chairperson of Fubon Financial Holdings Richard M. Tsai (蔡明興), Chairperson of Quanta Computer Barry Lam (林百里), Chairperson of Etron Technology Nicky Lu (盧超群), Chief Technology Officer of Acer Group Ruei-Chuan Chang (張瑞川), and Deputy Director of Microsoft Research Asia Peter T. Poon (潘天佑).

NTU Interim President Tei-Wei Kuo (郭大維) declared that NTU, in taking on the responsibility to innovate an effective new development model for academia-industry cooperation, is initiating a new economy of knowledge integration. This new economy would be the first in Taiwan to take the perspective of the business community as its core driver, and would upend the economic model of the past, erecting in its place a cross-sector and multidimensional platform for dialogue between business and university. Kuo said that NTU, as the leader of the nation’s elite universities and one of the top 100 academic institutions to be granted US utility patents in 2015, would strive to realize the creative integration of the vitality of Taiwan’s academic research community and the development of industrial technology in order to create new opportunities for the Taiwanese economy.

Vice President for Research and Development Fang-Jen Lee (李芳仁) said, “NTU is a research university that focuses on putting the fruits of scholarship to good use. The establishment of NTU GLORIA today marks a major improvement by expanding and encouraging research and development across all disciplines, constructing high-quality research infrastructure, and building an industry-academia research environment that is both foresighted and of practical value.”

Executive Director of NTU GLORIA Eric Jiang (江進元) noted that, among the universities to be selected to participate in the GLORIA program, NTU stands out as the one with the most comprehensive range of academic research and the most extensive influence across both industry and academia. Jiang said that, by taking a complete inventory of the needs and resources of industry and academia, NTU GLORIA would initially promote industry-academia cooperation projects for a new economy of knowledge integration that will utilize the systems of artificial intelligence plus (AI+), new financial technology, and the Internet of things (IoT) to produce applications in the areas of new medicine, new consumption, new entertainment, new agriculture, and new smart cars.

This article is featured in No. 64 of NTU Highlights (February, 2018).