“Beyond Scientific Cooperation between Czech Republic and Taiwan”

I come from other side of the Earth to celebrate with you on this special occasion of 20 years of “Velvet Revolution” and to witness the world of science without borders. It opens up the door for entomological scientific cooperation between Czech Republic and Taiwan when I came to Ceske Budejovice for an international conference on Insect Physiology in 1996.  Since then, we have honor to invite several Czech scientists including Dr. Gelbic, Prof. Sehnal, Dr. Sauman and others visited Taiwan. Some of the significant events happened during the last decade to show the vigorous interactions between the two communities. In 2003, I leaded a 9 people delegation to visit the Entomology Institute of Academic Sciences of Czech Republic with the supports from both the academy and NSC of Taiwan. This face to face discussion was the key step to establish the actual cooperation. Consequently, I was rewarded a 3-year cooperation grant with Dr. Ivan Gelbic to work on mosquito physiology and development of new control strategy. This grant marked the next step in real scientific cooperation. In the year of 2004, Prof. Sehnal also gave a crush course on insect development in the National Taiwan University. His lectures not only benefited our students, but also open another door for further cooperation in wide spectrum.  In 2005, we invited 6 Czech and 12 Japanese scientists came to National Taiwan University for a 3 days symposium to expand our cooperation into 3 counties network. For the last 6 years, we have 10 postdoctoral fellow and students to be trained in various laboratories in the institute.  Recently, we have signed an official MOA between the Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice and Bioresources and Agriculture College of the National Taiwan University in 2008. This agreement opens even wider cooperation for students and faculty members between two universities. Under this agreement, one of the student from the university to participate a 4 weeks summer course of Biodiversity, Agriculture and Culture of Taiwan in the National Taiwan University this year. We expect to have more students to be involved in this exchange activity for the future. Nevertheless, we have planted seeds of cooperation and friendship during the last decade, and expect to flourish for the years to come.