Since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office, her administration has been strongly promoting “five plus two” innovative industries as a way of stimulating Taiwan’s lackluster economy. These “five plus two” sectors include the “five major innovative industries” — building an Asian Silicon Valley, “intelligent” machinery, “green” energy technology, biomedicine and national defense — plus establishing a new agricultural paradigm and a circular economy.
According to reports, the overall budget for science and technology for the next financial year is NT$104.89 billion (US$3.3 billion), a 5.6 percent increase from the NT$99.37 billion allocated this year.
To develop the “five plus two” industries, the Cabinet is setting aside NT$10 billion of the budget to encourage government agencies to collaborate with businesses, academics and research establishments to propose flagship projects.
However, with NT$10 billion being set aside for this purpose, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the National Applied Research Laboratories, Academia Sinica and other ministries and departments that depend on the science and technology budget are going to have to deal with a reduction of NT$4.48 billion in next year’s science and technology budget.
This crowding-out effect will also extend to their subordinate departments, which will be asked to accept funding cuts in the national interest.
Each agency and department has its own unique features, and their ability to withstand budget cuts varies accordingly. Because of my field of study, I am most familiar with the National Chip Implementation Center (CIC), so I will take it as an example.
If budget cuts force the center to cut its services, reducing the opportunities it provides for teachers and students in the IC field throughout Taiwan to make their designs into actual chips, it is foreseeable that, while many in the current generation of IC design students have experience in chip implementation, the number of students with such experience will shrink.
Such a loss would certainly have a considerable impact on the ability of the nation to foster outstanding IC designers and the overall development of the industry. Another possibility is that funding for chip implementation would be maintained at current levels, but the center would be forced to stop importing new semiconductor processing equipment and software and hardware service platforms.
That would like killing a chicken for its eggs, since it would forfeit the prospects for fostering IC professionals.
The center is a very special institution. Back in my student days, the first chip I designed was built using CIC facilities, and these days my students are still implementing the chips they design through its services.
Every student’s design is submitted anonymously for verification by experts, and only if they pass this review stage are they qualified to proceed to the next stage of production. The students of senior professors, CIC directors and those attending private universities all get the same treatment, so it is a fair system. The center solves the most worrisome problems for every professor in our field, allowing teachers and students to concentrate on technical research and development.
In the past, there was a national-level plan for the IC design field, and there is still a plan for education reform. However, rather than allocate funding for education reform and national research plans, I would prefer that the center is sufficiently funded, and I believe that most people in the field of IC design feel the same way.
In our modern, technological society, semiconductors have widespread applications and are a basic technology that supports most of the “five plus two” innovative industries. IC chip design involves software, hardware and systems control, and it is the brain behind many modern technologies.
Although the semiconductor industry is not listed among the “five plus two” innovative industries, the government surely understands that a robust Taiwanese semiconductor industry provides the strongest backing for its efforts to develop innovative industries, and those innovative industries will also be important outlets for Taiwan’s semiconductor industry.
It is better for these industries to work in tandem than for each of them to climb the mountain on their own.
Everyone understands that the nation’s fiscal resources have been restricted in recent years and that our leaders must make sure that we can live within our means. However, the right way to do this is not to cut every budget item almost equally, so that everything gets leveled down.
That would be unwise, especially when it comes to not-for-profit institutions whose role is to help foster talent. Cutting their budgets would make it harder for them to develop talented people, and that would inevitably have a serious effect on the development of the nation’s key industries.
In view of this, our top politicians clearly need to give the matter further consideration.
Chang Soon-jyh is a professor of electrical engineering at National Cheng Kung University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
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