NCBR celebrates ten years of cooperation with Taiwan

International cooperation is one of the key tasks of Poland’s National Centre for Research and Development. Year 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of the joint support of international research and development projects by the NCBR and the Taiwanese Ministry of Science and Technology. The anniversary is celebrated with a special 10th call. Since the beginning of this cooperation, 53 projects were selected for funding and implemented by Polish-Taiwanese consortia consisting of research institutions and enterprises. The NCBR has dedicated a total of EUR 4.73 million for those projects so far.

This year’s 10th call for proposals is open until 15 June. The R&I organisations from Poland and Taiwan team up to apply for funding for projects spanning 3 years. They may include research in the areas of energy efficiency, materials engineering, intelligent transport, cybersecurity and space research among others.

As part of the cooperation agreement, the NCBR and Taiwanese MoST also organise annual scientific seminars combined with study visits, carried out alternately in Poland and Taiwan. Nine seminars have taken place so far. Each of them was attended by a selected group of researchers from both countries. During the visits, participants had the opportunity to visit the research centers and scientific institutions of the host country to discover the latest developments there. The highlight of each visit was a conference dedicated to research topics identified as priorities in mutual cooperation. The last in person edition saw the NCBR, in cooperation with Poland’s Motor Transport Institute, host a Taiwanese delegation to Poland. The theme of the visit and scientific conference was electric transport and autonomous vehicles. The meeting last year, due to COVID19 restrictions, was held remotely and concerned technologies used in space research.

Thanks to regularly organised calls, a dynamic scientific cooperation with Taiwan has emerged in Poland. Leaders in that field are: Warsaw University of Technology (13 joint projects), Institute for Chemical Processing of Coal in Zabrze (4 joint projects), Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (4 joint projects).

Many institutes continue the cooperation launched thanks to this initiative on a more permanent basis. For example, in the eighth competition, all co-funded projects were a continuation of projects from previous years. A particularly interesting area for researchers from both countries is materials engineering.