Tallinn-Taipei Research Axis Aims for Zenith
Two leading Estonian researchers are back from Taiwan after discussing ways of fleshing out a cooperation agreement signed last year.
Professors Volli Kalm and Toivo Maimets discussed the details of the agreement signed this autumn between the Estonian Science Foundation and the Taiwanwese National Research Council, which among other things provides for funding for researcher exchange.
Maimets and Kalm had meetings last week with the deputy minister for research and visited three universities and the Academia Sinica - Taiwan's academy of sciences, where the working language is English.
Kalm said the laboratories at the instates of the Academia Sinica, universities and technology parks were very open to cooperation and attractive to researchers. He also noted Taiwan's role in driving development of technology and innovation neighboring communist China.
"As such it is for its international partners a springboard to the world's most populous country," he said. "And although it seems far-removed from Estonia, we actually have a science and technology cooperation starting point - Taiwan's national space agency's laboratory has ordered antennas from Estonia's Vertex Eesti AS for maintaining communications with its satellites," said Kalm.
Maimets also said interest in Estonia as well as in cooperation was high in Taiwan, which has a population 15 times that of Estonia. "Taiwan's research in the field of information and communications technology and molecular biology and monitoring via space satellites left a particular impression," he said.
Kristopher Rikken