President Tsai Ing-wen says she hopes companies and universities can establish mutually beneficial and supportive relationships. She was speaking Thursday while meeting with the laureates of the 2021 TSC Thesis Award.
The TSC Thesis Awards are the biggest Taiwanese competition for Master’s theses and doctoral dissertations. Over 900 students participated in this year’s competition. During Thursday’s meeting, the president made special mention of a student from one of the countries that maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan -- Haiti.
In a speech, the president said that cultivating talent and promoting industrial-academic cooperation have been focus points for government policy in recent years. She said that in order to increase Taiwan’s research potential, four semiconductor and two financial research institutes are being set up.
President Tsai said that many entries in this year’s competition focused on current events, like the relationship between the attention investors are paying to COVID-19 and market returns. Other areas of research include circular economy, digital wellbeing, care services, innovation models, and science park development. The president said research like this can inform the decisions of both the government and industries.