NSTDA and the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs) marked a significant milestone of their collaboration with a conclusion of a Joint Program Framework Agreement officiated on 1 November 2019 at NARLabs in Taiwan. Representing the two organizations in this auspicious occasion were Dr. Narong Sirilertworakul, NSTDA President and Prof. Yeong-Her Wang, NARLabs President.
Prior to the Joint Program Framework Agreement, NSTDA and NARLabs have entered into an MOU to initiate the partnership. A series of activities have been organized to reinforce the collaboration such as the participation of NARLabs executives and researchers in the NSTDA Annual Conference 2019 in March for a joint workshop and the opening of NARLabs Bangkok Office at Thailand Science Park. The joint workshop in March led to discussion of potential joint projects in a number of fields, including high performance computing (HPC), sensors, and precision agriculture, for instance.
In order to provide a platform to support joint projects, the Framework Agreement was conceived. Under this Framework Agreement, NSTDA and NARLabs will encourage their staff to engage in joint projects which can be research, technology demonstration and/or capacity building. Joint projects approved by a steering committee comprising executives of NSTDA and NARLabs will be provided with resources and funding. An annual workshop and annual meeting of the steering committee will be organized to facilitate the collaboration.
Further to this Framework Agreement, executives of both parties agreed to further advance research collaboration to include universities in Thailand and Taiwan to the platform and expand some activities, such as workshop and capacity building, from bilateral to multilateral, opening window of opportunities for ASEAN member states.
NSTDA delegation visiting NARLabs was given a tour to Taiwan Instrument Research Institute (TIRI) and Taiwan National Center for High-Performance Computing, (NCHC). A separate tour to Car Lab in Tainan was arranged for NSTDA research team working on autonomous vehicle.
