Bridging German industrial technology to Taiwan, Feng Chia University's Fraunhofer Innovation Platform is ready to launch

Feng Chia University, with the support and recognition of the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, will establish the "Feng Chia University Fraunhofer Innovation Platform" (FIP-SPE@FCU) in September this year, becoming the second in Asia and the first in Taiwan to have a Fraunhofer Innovation Platform (Fraunhofer Innovation Platform, FIP). Headquartered in Germany, the Fraunhofer Society is the world's largest and leading applied research organization, dedicated to developing core technologies that are crucial for the future and helping the industry to commercialize these research results, playing a key role in the innovation technology development process to the commercialization stage. Each FIP around the world cooperates with a specific research institute of the Fraunhofer Society, and the participating academic and research units are all globally renowned academic and research institutions.

Feng Chia University has been in a bilateral partnership with the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films (Fraunhofer IST) since 2015, to bridge the gap between research and industrial development and create market-ready production solutions. In 2018, based on its years of industry-academia cooperation in the field of materials, Feng Chia University established a Plasma Technology Research Center jointly established with Fraunhofer IST, which has since had closer industry-academia cooperation projects with the Fraunhofer Society and is committed to developing solutions for the manufacturing industry.

In June this year, Chair Professor Ho Chu-Liang led the FIP-SPE@FCU team and the Taiwan Surface Treatment Industry Association to visit the German Surface Treatment Product Innovation International Exhibition, Fraunhofer IST and its affiliated Hydrogen Campus in Salzgitter. During the visit to Fraunhofer IST, they discussed the latest developments in surface treatment technology, the international trends and the pulse of the product manufacturing industry chain, and thus created potential cases. During the visit to the Hydrogen Campus, they learned about Europe's planning for the hydrogen industry chain, including production, transportation, storage, and use, as well as the key technologies involved in each link, to pursue the development and strategy of realizing the hydrogen ecosystem, and hope to build on the existing green hydrogen technology team at Feng Chia to promote the development of the domestic hydrogen economy.

FIP-SPE@FCU is scheduled to open in September this year. Through the international bilateral cooperation of FIP-SPE@FCU, Feng Chia University will introduce the German industry-academia-research ecology, connect the German and Taiwanese academia and industry, conduct talent cultivation and exchange, jointly propose to strengthen industrial technology, and assist domestic related industries in upgrading and transforming on major industrial issues such as "digital transformation", "artificial intelligence", "net zero carbon emissions" and "ESG sustainable development", injecting more international links into academic research and domestic industrial development at Feng Chia University.

The FIP-SPE@FCU team of Feng Chia University and the Taiwan Surface Treatment Industry Association visited the Fraunhofer IST in Germany, which> is affiliated to the leading European applied research organization, the Fraunhofer Society.