Academics urge companies to increase R&D

Industries modify their development strategies to cope with new challenges as the nation is at a crossroads, academics said at a seminar yesterday in Taipei.

Efforts to develop an innovation-driven and knowledge-based economy would help companies stay competitive when globalization has made international investment easier, they said.

"As an increasing number of developing countries are becoming internationally competitive. We must develop distinctive technologies to lower costs, rather than just resorting to mass production -- the method we used in past decades," said Chen Po-chih (陳博志), chairman of the Taiwan Thinktank.

Chen speaking at the opening session of a two-day seminar on technological innovation co-hosted by the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台經院), the Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan (工研院) and the Chung-hua Institution for Economic Research (中經院).

Chen resource competition has replaced product competition as nations endeavor to woo foreign capital and skilled personnel.

"The key to retaining local businesses and to lure more foreign manufacturers is to put more R&D effort into non-tradable goods," said Chen, an economics professor at National Taiwan University.

Taking as an example, Chen said that if water were in short supply, manufacturers wouldn't be able to vie with foreign competitors as water purchases would be far too costly.

He attributed the nation's economic growth to the efforts made by the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). But, these growth engines may now find it difficult to stand up to competition amid glo-bal changes, he warned.

"In addition to highlighting their uniqueness, these SMEs should also work in cooperation to maximize the `clustering effect' -- a successful mode they used to adopt," Chen said.

His view on cooperation was echoed by Lance Wu (吳作樂), director of the National Space Program Office, who warned that the nation is facing a severe shortage of cross-disciplinary expertise.

"For instance, statistics can work with biology, art can merge with management, and information technology can be added into medicine," Wu said.

He urged the government to fund more small, cross-disciplinary projects, and enforce this concept on research institutes.

Meanwhile, a guest speaker from overseas unveiled his forecasts of future mainstream industries for the next 20 years.

"These strategic breakthroughs in nine star industries can each produce hundreds of billions of US dollars in demand," said William Halal, a management professor at the George Washington University in Washington.

Based his research center's forecasts, Halal said broadband would become mainstream this year, mass customization in 2009, intelligent interface in 2010, smart robots in 2012, hybrid cars in 2013, nanotechnology in 2014, telemedicine in 2015, alternative energy in 2017, and biotechnology in 2020.

But what will follow when the information age peaks around 2020?

"Beyond knowledge, human beings' spirituality would be growing rapidly to address transcendent issues raised by high-tech transformation, such as the environment, biogenetics, weapons of mass destruction and the experience economy," Halal said.

"It will be a `spiritual age' driven by `technologies of consciousness,''' he said.