Twenty Taiwanese universities and colleges participated in the world’s largest international education event to expand higher education cooperation with their US counterparts, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan said on Wednesday.
Nearly 10,000 people from more than 100 nations joined the annual education conference and exposition held by NAFSA: Association of International Educators in New Orleans, Louisiana, from Tuesday to today, the foundation said.
Themed “Resilience. Renewal. Community” this year, the event serves as a platform for global communities to work together to foster resilience in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era, support educational renewal and build stronger connections, it said.
Photo courtesy of the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan via CNA
The Taiwan Pavilion at the exposition showcased its strengths of being a “technology island,” highlighting key technologies such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, satellites, the circular economy and healthcare, it said.
Taiwan is committed to advancing higher education with global technological development, it added.
Higher education institutions from Taiwan have signed 26 collaborative agreements with 24 states in the US since the launch of the US-Taiwan Education Initiative in 2020, foundation chair and National Taiwan Normal University president Wu Cheng-chih (吳正己) said.
While the US Department of State continues to support Taiwan’s goal to become a bilingual nation by 2030, 66 Taiwan Centers for Mandarin Learning have been established in Washington and 3,000 US students are currently studying Mandarin in Taiwan, the foundation said.
Taiwan held the Taiwan-US Higher Education Symposium on Wednesday to foster further mutual understanding and cooperation, and a Taiwan Night networking event in the evening, it said.
The foundation also organized a Taiwan-Czech networking event on Tuesday, where representatives from 12 Taiwanese and eight Czech universities met and discussed collaboration opportunities, it said.
Separately, National Central University and Norway’s Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on ocean remote sensing and climate change research, the university said on Wednesday.
The two sides signed the memorandum on Monday in Bergen, Norway, to promote academic development and national diplomacy, it said.
Under the memorandum, the two institutes are to adopt remote sensing ocean observation and geophysical exploration technologies to polar research and to studies related to sustainable development, it added.
National Central University students and researchers would have opportunities to visit the center for short-term exchanges, it said, adding that the center is to share its research ships with Taiwanese academics.
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