"Taiwan's role in the global value chain is shifting from contract manufacturing to the creation of added value," points out ITRI president Johnsee Lee. He explains that any industry's development follows an S-shaped curve that progresses from birth, through growth, to maturity. However, a concerted push in advanced technology can yield marked growth. For example, shifting from tools with a 0.01-centimeter precision to those with 0.001-centimeter precision might dramatically increase the price at which a machine tool can be sold from a range of NT$2-5 million into a range of NT$10-15 million, thereby instantly raising revenues three- to five-fold.

ITRI, 89% of whose clients are manufacturing firms, reorganized itself early this year to enable it to better meet the needs of industry and society at large. It broke from its original monolithic organization to one structured around "focus technology" centers in the areas of displays, medical electronics and devices, photovoltaics, RFID (radio-frequency identification), SoC (system on a chip), and technology applications for service industries.

Lee explains that in the past ITRI was organized around various academic fields, such as chemical engineering, electronics, and electrical engineering. Now, the organization must be better attuned to clients' service needs, integrating technology from different areas and responding to changing requirements stemming from an aging population, the trend toward smaller families, individually tailored shopping experiences, and environmental concerns.

Lee relates that ITRI has three core missions: technology R&D, services to industry, and value-added intellectual property. In this era of the knowledge economy, ITRI is especially concerned with adding value through technology. In 2004, ITRI won more than 1146 patents in Taiwan and abroad, reaching an all-time high. Last year, it received 885, 508 of them being invention patents granted in Taiwan--far exceeding the 325 achieved by the second-ranked TSMC.

ITRI also offers ample rewards for innovation. For a patent that is licensed and successfully commercialized, 25% of the licensing royalties that ITRI collects goes to the R&D team and 15% to the marketing team that located the licensee. With this system in place, people who enjoy inventing and have many creative ideas should come to ITRI.

Besides regular R&D staff, ITRI also urgently needs professionals with an international outlook for devising industrial strategy. ITRI maintains a technology steering committee, which commissions consultants both in Taiwan and abroad to serve as "informants" in recommending promising candidates.

Currently, most of ITRI's technology centers are headed by directors recruited back to Taiwan from overseas. For example, Biomedical Engineering Research Laboratories general director Michael Su has a PhD in biochemistry from Duke University and 14 years of experience in the biotechnology industry. While serving as vice president at Vertex Pharmaceuticals in the US, he led a team of 200 R&D workers in a collaborative project with pharmaceutical industry giant Novartis. He was in charge of a project to develop kinase inhibitors, which have anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as the ability to suppress adverse drug reactions.

Lee says that international talent is recruited for technology center heads because in addition to technology expertise, these positions demand familiarity with global industry trends and the ability to develop a business model. This is especially true of the biotechnology industry, where Taiwan lags the most advanced countries by at least ten years.

Lee states frankly that it is difficult for Taiwan to compete with Singapore and Hong Kong in recruiting high-tech professionals, with even Korea vigorously pursuing Taiwan-born tech talents--to say nothing of trying to compete with Silicon Valley tech giants.

Although compensation in Taiwan is only half what it is in Hong Kong, Lee believes that what foreign tech professionals really care about is whether a job can provide a sense of achievement, and whether their work can make a contribution to Taiwan's society. Some people hope to start a company, and for them, ITRI possesses an outstanding marketing team that can help turn such dreams into reality. ITRI has already cultivated 65 company presidents and helped found 140 companies, 36 of which have operations in the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park, boasting total investments of NT$47 billion.

"Taiwanese society is full of vitality. In the language of kinetics, the molecules that make it up are extremely dynamic," says Lee. He explains that this means many people are willing to take risks and novel events are commonplace. However, if brainpower and knowledge can be applied to R&D innovation, that will make a greater contribution to advancing Taiwan's industry.