Taiwan – a third-world country?
Taiwan, a small island with currently more than 20 million inhabitants, is still sometimes seen as a place where cheap trinkets are manufactured, a relatively poor and underdeveloped nation with little to commend in the fields of modern technology and science. Yet, within a few decades, it has transformed itself from a third world country ruled by a dictatorship into a relatively affluent modern democracy with good infrastructure, whose per capita GNP is close to that of France. Much of its economy has been built on the microelectronics industry: Taiwan is, for example, the major worldwide producer of laptop computers.

Science-wise, the transformation also has been spectacular. Taiwanese citizens who had studied for a PhD in the US, as well as scientists already established in that country, were lured back to the island by the establishment of very well equipped laboratories, fairly generous grants and the opportunity to set up their own research groups somewhat more easily than in the US. This “reverse brain drain”, which began in the 1980’s, now has resulted in a number of first-rate institutes enjoying excellent facilities and whose groups publish in the major international scientifi c journals, including The EMBO Journal. Of course there are some problems, as anywhere: there still is a relative lack of outstanding senior scientists, the collaboration between different institutes and universities is not always optimal, and the administrative infrastructure can sometimes be a hindrance rather than a help… but on the whole the research environment is quite comparable to what can be found in Germany or in the US – often with more abundant and up-todate equipment.

Biology and biotechnology in Taiwan: the NRPGM
This positive picture is particularly true in the biological sciences, which have been a focus of investment during the last twenty years. Indeed one of the objectives of successive governments is to repeat in biotechnology the successes scored by Taiwan in electronics, that is to build a powerful biotech industry able to drive the island’s economic development into the 21st century. One of the major instruments to this end is the National Research Program for Genomic Medicine (NRPGM), initiated in 2002, which aims to “develop Taiwan’s visibility and international competitive edge in bio-medical research” as well as to “act as an initiator for the local bio-medical industry”. The NRPGM is planned to run until 2012, with annual funding of the order of 40 million euro, and supports extensive core facilities as well as research projects. The core facilities, which are well funded and well equipped, cover the usual technologies, from high-speed sequencing to large-scale SNP mapping, as well as functional genomics (KO and KI mice, ENU mutagenesis and a large RNAi core). The grants finance research programs in the general field of genomic medicine, with particular focus on liver and lung cancer as well as on infectious diseases. Much of this infrastructure, and some of the most dynamic groups, are concentrated in Academia Sinica, a multidisciplinary institution somewhat similar to the Max Planck Gesellschaft in Germany, whose institutes are located on a large campus in Taipei. Some other core facilities, and a number of excellent research groups, are in the major universities such as the National Taiwan University and the Yang Ming University in Taipei, and others. Almost all the groups involved are led by Chinese scientists who have been trained in the US, usually at the postdoctoral level, and who keep active connections with a number of laboratories in that country.

Why EMBO?
Because of the recent history sketched above, the major foreign connection of Taiwanese science is with the US (Japan, of course much closer, suffers from bad memories of the Second World War). European science does not have high visibility in spite of its fairly good general level, as few Chinese scientists have worked in the EU, and few connections have been established. In addition, seen from Taiwan, Europe appears as a fragmented set of nations with different languages and different types of organization – a complicated world to interact with. Yet leaders of the local scientific community are aware of the need to establish a more balanced relationship with the world scientific establishment, and, for Europe, Taiwan is a window on the Chinese world that we cannot afford to ignore. Having been involved with Taiwan for a long time, first as coordinator of France-Taiwan collaborations in life sciences (1991–1999), then as member of the advisory committee for the NRPGM since its inception, it seemed to me that interactions between EMBO and the NRPGM could be mutually beneficial. I was encouraged in this initiative both by the current EMBO executive director and by the director of the NRPGM. This seems particularly timely now that EMBO is initiating specific actions in molecular medicine (fellowships, workshops and a new journal for 2009).

What can be done?
EMBO, and the possibilities it offers, are largely unknown in Taiwan. Our organization will now be prominently displayed on the NRPGM website, and in particular the availability of EMBO Fellowships – long and short-term – open to Taiwanese scientists will be advertised. It would certainly be to everybody’s advantage to attract some top-level post-docs from that country to EMBO countries. The possibility of inviting European scientists as EMBO lecturers in suitable meetings or workshops held in Taiwan is now known to NRPGM, and initial steps have been taken to use this opportunity. Further in the future, organizing an EMBO workshop or lecture course in Taiwan is perfectly conceivable; in addition, the EMBO Science & Society programme could certainly interact fruitfully with the ELSI (Ethical, Legal and Social Issues) group that operates within NRPGM – again, preliminary steps have been taken. Before I conclude, let me point out that scientific interactions with Taiwan are not only fruitful because of the good level of local laboratories, but also extremely enjoyable because of the warm hospitality received in this very dynamic, easy going yet highly exotic island.

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