Centre promotes industrial alliances

The Faculty of Engineering at CU has set up the Centre for Innovation and Technology to pro mote closer ties with the commercial sector.

Projects will be undertaken in partnership with industry to develop value-added technol ogies and to promote the commercialisation of research.

'The centre will provide the synergy to expand and intensify inter-departmental multi-disci plinary projects on emerging technologies, to ele vate industrial liaison and co-operation, to find ways to transfer technologies to industry and to provide models and incentives for graduates to think and act as innovators and entrepreneurs,' dean of engineering Ching Pak-chung said.

The move appears to echo similar approaches taken by institutions in the United States.

Many companies in California's Silicon Valley grew out of research first developed at nearby Stanford University, one of the world's top insti tutions of higher learning.

Graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), meanwhile, have founded 4,000 currently active companies, the on-line MIT News reported.

If these companies constituted an indepen dent country, they would collectively have one of the world's highest gross national products, the report said.

'Hong Kong is facing new challenges in sus taining its economic growth by revitalising the manufacturing sector through the development of high value-added activities based on innova tion and technology,' Professor Ching said.