Taiwan on Track to Support Research and Development to Reach 3% of GDP by 2008. (August 11, 2006)

    According to a report in today's Science Taiwan's National Science Council (NSC) has approved an A$3.4 billion science budget for 2007. "Being a small island without natural resources, Taiwan is in great need of R&D [for] the knowledge-based economy," says NSC's Chien-Jen Chen, an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica, the nation's top research institution.

Chen has called for a 10.8% increase next year, which is expected to be adopted this fall by national legislators.

Over the past six years research spending increases have outpaced overall governmental spending. If the rate of increase continues Taiwan's research investment will reach 3% of the country's GDP by 2008. "We all feel very highly supported," Cheng-Ting Chien, deputy director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Molecular Biology told Science.

The new budget benefits all sectors, but special attention is given to mission-oriented programs in regenerative energy, earth sciences and astronomy, industrial-academic collaborations, avian and pandemic flu, and stem cell research.

Dr Chen says all projects will be subject to peer review.

For those with short memories the Australian Vice-Chancellors' Committee has called for "the national innovation strategy [to] include a national commitment to a target for
Australian investment in research and innovation [of] 2% of GDP by 2010, and 3% of GDP by 2020."

Looks kind of feeble, don't it. And the Federal Coalition has given no indication that it has any intention to put in place mechanisms for even meeting the AVCCs' goals.