【A delegation of the Provincial Parliament Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick of Canada visited NCKU to strengthen collaborations in education and industrial partnerships between Canada and NCKU.】

A delegation of the Provincial Parliament Ontario, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick of Canada, accompanied by the director of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Toronto, Mr. Ethan C.H. Liao, visited the National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) on August 3, 2023. During the meeting, the Canadian delegates showed high interest in understanding the success of NCKU’s Taiwan-Canada bilateral student exchange and internship program, knowing the accomplishments in international patent applications and technology transfer, and the startup company mentorship program. Professor Ming-Long Yeh, Director of Startup Accelerator of Innovation Headquarters, NCKU, stated that NCKU received a score of 100 (out of 100) for the category of “Industrial income” in the 2023 Times Higher Education World University Rankings and is also ranked “fifth” globally for the category of “Industry, innovation, and infrastructure”. Prof. Yeh further expressed that, NCKU is placed in the top 93rd among different international universities or institutions, in terms of the number of U.S. utility patents received and published in 2022 as reported by the National Academy of Inventors and Intellectual Property Owners Association. Until 2022, 75 cross-disciplinary research centers have been established, cooperating with 355 companies, and obtaining corporate research funding of approximately $33.7 million USD.

Of note, in 2019, NCKU signed a partnership agreement with Mitacs, a Canadian non-profit organization that serves as an industry-academia platform, to accelerate the knowledge transfer and sharing among universities, businesses, and governments in Taiwan and Canada. A cross-national internship project was launched in 2023 between NCKU and the University of Toronto in Ontario in order to increase students’ global competitiveness. Students participating in this program can carry out their internships abroad in any corporate innovation units or start-up companies.