In the last week of August, a Taiwanese delegation led by the recently appointed Taiwanese Minister for Science and Technology Mr. Hung-Duen Yang visited Germany and the Netherlands. They aimed to strengthen relations with scientific institutes, governments and funding organisations between these countries. One of the meetings was with representatives of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability, in which some 7 research groups of Leiden University, TU Delft, and Erasmus University Rotterdam collaborate on a circular economy and resource efficiency.
It was a very interesting and fruitful meeting, says professor Ellen van Bueren, Executive Board member of CfS, who hosted the meeting at the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft. It appears Taiwan sees a lot of parallels with the Dutch situation. Countries of similar size, both low on own resources, and both export countries with important production hubs for high-tech products. And like in Europe, the Taiwanese see the transition to a circular economy as one of the best ways to avoid a future resource crisis.
The Taiwanese delegation was clearly impressed by the comprehensive knowledge base CfS can provide, by combining the business, technology and science expertise of the three universities.
It would be really interesting to organize staff exchanges, or to set up joint research programs supported by the respective National Science Foundations, say dean Jeroen van den Hoven, dean at TUD and member of CfS’s Steering Committee, and CfS Executive Board Chair Arnold Tukker of Leiden University-CML.
Follow-up visits to CfS by high-level representatives of Taiwanese universities have already been agreed upon and will take place in the 3rd week of September.