Fri, Dec 21, 2007 page2

• Nobel laureate calls for centralized science goals

  GLOBAL WARMING Lee Yuan-tseh of the Science and Technology Advisory Group said a new taskforce was required to fight against greenhouse gas emissions

  • By Meggie Lu / STAFF REPORTER
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  Taiwan needs centralized guidelines on important goals in science and technology policies, Nobel laureate Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), lead adviser of the Science and Technology Advisory Group (STAG), said yesterday at the closing ceremony of the four-day STAG meeting in Taipei.

  The government must set goals for economic growth, healthcare for the elderly and sustainable energy development, he said.

  Lee said the meeting achieved promising results in terms of drafting a science and technology development framework that calls for clear policies and collaboration between different authorities.

  "The lack of a centralized legal infrastructure for the development of science and technology has been one factor hindering it," Lee said.

  The way to deal with this is to create "an institutionalized authority focusing on the issue, at the level of vice premier, tasked with supervising coordination between ministries on science and technology," he said.

  "STAG therefore drafted the Fundamental Guidelines of Science and Technology Development, a blueprint for strategic progress in the field in coming years," he said.

  The draft will be submitted to the Cabinet, Lee said, adding that it could serve as an initial framework for the government's work.

  The guidelines identify continuous and consistent leadership as well as investment in developing talent as key factors. They also recommend streamlining policies that govern the development of science and technology, Lee said.

  "Research and analysis are key for a policy to succeed," Lee said.

  Lee said that other countries often set aside five percent of the budget for a given technology project to fund analysis and research projects.

  "It is common to see a NT$2 billion [US$64 million] science and technology project employ one single university professor to do feasibility analysis for NT$2,000," he said.

  "[Taiwan] needs to realize that forming well-planned policies is costly both financially and personnel-wise," he said. "With the establishment of a `technological decision support office' we can consolidate resources of STAG and the National Science Council and determine whether a project is worthwhile before we carry it out."

  STAG tasked adviser Eugene Wong (王佑曾) with heading an analysis project that would "observe current markets, forecast future trends and research and provide strategies to overcome projected problems," STAG researcher Dai Yuan-fung (戴元峰) said.

  One focus of Wong's project would be to increase the value of traditional industries and the service industry and to incorporate innovations in science and technology, Minister without Portfolio Lin Ferng-Ching (林逢慶) said.

  "As the service industry contributes to more than 70 percent of the nation's GDP, in order to increase GDP, infusing science and technology into this sector and making it `IT-enabled' is a top priority," Lin said.

  Asked how the framework could help efforts to combat global warming, Lee said that a centralized taskforce would be more efficient in combating greenhouse gas emissions.

  "Science and technology targets for the future include developing renewable energies and resource conservation. With a figure established and an authority in place, corresponding policies can then be developed to achieve the goal," Lee said.
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