Taiwan Quick Take: NSC to open Czech office

The National Science Council (NSC) will establish a new liaison office in the Czech Republic by October to facilitate scientific cooperation with Eastern European countries, an NSC spokesman said yesterday. The new office -- officially titled the "NSC Science and Technology Division in the Czech Republic" -- will function as a part of Taiwan's Representative Office there. The Czech division is the 16th of its kind in the world, and the NSC plans to create a 17th in South Korea. Lin Kwang-lung (林光隆), head of the NSC's Department of International Cooperation, said that until now there have been only four liaison offices in Europe -- the Britain, Belgium, France and Germany divisions -- and that the office in Germany had been tasked with contacting scientific institutions and organizations in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and all Eastern European countries. The German office's workload is too heavy, Lin explained.