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Taiwan needs to innovate to stay ahead
By Luo Ren-chuan ù¤¯Åv
Sunday, Jul 11, 2010, Page 8
Whether patents and technology should be transferred from
colleges, universities and other academic institutions and whether professors
should be allowed to establish companies has been the subject of much heated
debate recently. The issue of recusal has also caused many experts and academics
to demand sunshine legislation.
In addition to teaching, academic research and counseling, university professors
should also assist with industrial innovation and help improve competitiveness.
National development would benefit greatly if professors and their postgraduate
students were better able to transform knowledge into economic power by creating
new types of output value.
Product prototypes are created through theoretical derivation, the creation of
algorithms and product tests. However, the technology gap between a prototype
and a market-ready product is often hard to bridge.
Inadequate funding and oranization mean that many colleges and universities are
unable to overcome such obstacles. This means much research only appears in
special publications. Such technology cannot be applied to products through
technology transfers or business, which means its benefits are limited.
In the US, Japan and the EU, it is quite common for full-time university
professors to set up companies. In these countries, professors well-versed in
the latest technologies lead students in the real life application of algorithms
and in product R&D. This means that such countries have more chances to benefit
economically. It is also beneficial in securing patents and technology
transfers.
Data from the Ministry of Economic Affairs¡¦ Intellectual Property Office shows
that in 2008, the US and Japan obtained 185,224 and 215,249 patents
respectively, while Taiwan only obtained 42,283.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is an interesting case study. In
February, the US business research institution, the Kauffmann Foundation,
released a report entitled ¡§Entrepreneurial Impact: The role of MIT.¡¨ This said
that if all companies founded by teachers, students and graduates of MIT were
put together and counted as a nation, it would be the 17th biggest economy in
the world. The report also said MIT teachers, students and graduates have
founded a total of 25,800 companies with about 3.3 million employees, and
average annual sales of US$2 trillion.
Some worry that universities will lose their autonomy if they get too close to
business and that professors will confuse their roles and encounter conflicts of
interest. However, if suitable measures are put in place, if schools become
partners in companies and if patents and technology transfer licensing fees were
established, professors with specialized knowledge and business acumen could
turn their knowledge into output value, which would be a good thing.
Such a business model could encourage people to take out more patents of a
higher quality, ensuring Taiwan exports more technology products than it
imports.
We lack outlets for creativity, and the results of our patents and technology
transfers are limited. These problems have been discussed for some time, and the
attitude of the Ministry of Education and the National Science Council, the
institutions in charge of guiding public and private universities, is now
crucial.
In this age of knowledge-based economies, there are only three choices: To be
creative and innovative, to blindly follow others or be eliminated due to a lack
of competitiveness. Taiwan is full of creative people. Which one of these three
choices are we going to make?
Luo Ren-chuan is a professor of electrical engineering at
National Taiwan University.
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