By Rachel Lin and Esme Yeh / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Taiwan Bridges Program has built bridges of knowledge, generations and peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said at the program’s closing ceremony at National Taiwan University in Taipei yesterday.
The program was launched by Academia Sinica and the university in November last year in collaboration with 12 academic or research institutions and the International Peace Foundation.
A total of 31 Nobel Prize laureates were invited to Taiwan for exchanges within seven months of the program’s launch.
President William Lai speaks at the Taiwan Bridges Program’s closing ceremony in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
Lai, serving as the program’s honorary chairman, said in his address he expects Taiwan to become an anchor around which international scientific exchanges and conversations revolve.
“The program has built three bridges,” he said.
Firstly, “the bridge of knowledge” invited the world’s cutting-edge knowledge into Taiwan while bringing Taiwan’s academic researchers to the world, Lai said.
Faced with climate change, artificial intelligence, pandemic threats and shifting geopolitics, no country can find all of the answers on its own, he said, adding Taiwan must work with the world to ask the right questions and seek solutions together.
Secondly, “the bridge between generations” brought 31 world-changing academics to school campuses in Taiwan to deliver lectures, Lai said.
The students attending the lectures could become influential scientists in two decades and contribute to the world, he said.
Third, “the bridge of peace” encourages researchers of different fields to think how they can leverage their expertise to add to global peace and prosperity, he said.
Referring to the vision he outlined in November last year of Taiwan producing three more Nobel laureates within 30 years, Lai said the government would enhance basic research and higher education, support researchers in exploring the unknown, and expand international research collaborations and talent exchanges.
It would seek to turn initial encounters into long-term partnerships and bring together the government, foundations and broader society to build a stable, long-term support system, he said.