The National Science Council (NSC) announced yesterday that the France-Taiwan Science Award will be given this year to Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), president of Academia Sinica, the nation's highest academic body.
The award, sponsored by the NSC and the Paris-based Insitut de France for the past three years to promote bilateral cooperation in science and technology between Taiwan and France, is given annually to an outstanding scholar from either France or Taiwan.
The past two winners of the awards are French scholars Jacques Angelier and Bertrand Jordan.
NSC officials noted that Lee, a Nobel prize winner in chemistry, has been active in promoting cultural and academic exchanges since becoming the head of Academia Sinica in 1994.
Lee signed a 10-year cooperation agreement in 1995 with France's Louis Pasteur Institute. In the field of life-science, Academia Sinica has also sponsored several seminars and cooperation projects, such as an agreement with France's College of High Education and Social Science.
In addition, Lee has also promoted artistic exchanges, saying that the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica and the National Palace Museum also selected some precious collections to send to a French exhibition titled "Memory of Empire" that ran from October 1998 to January 1999.
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