National Formosa University's Innovation Incubation Center, established 28 years ago, has been dedicated to guiding companies in the manufacturing sector and advancing manufacturing technologies. This year, the Incubation Center supported a Hsinchu-based industrial equipment supplier in developing an "Automatic Laser Pipe Welding Machine," significantly improving welding speed and helping the company successfully list on the emerging stock market — marking a new milestone in industry-academia collaboration.
Tu Kuang-Yi, Director of NFU's Office of Industry-Academia Cooperation, pointed out that the university's Innovation Incubation Center was founded in 1997 and has now been operating for 28 years, with the primary goal of nurturing startups by having the university provide R&D capacity to support product development, fostering closer industry-academia collaboration between the university and businesses.
Tu explained that the Innovation Incubation Center currently has approximately 5 staff members, and its collaboration model with businesses can be divided into two approaches: proactively seeking out companies to partner with, and helping match companies with the university's academic departments for a series of R&D guidance projects. He noted that over its 28-year history, the center has collaborated with over a thousand company partnerships, with fruitful results — in the past two years, 30% to 40% of companies have chosen to collaborate again due to positive word of mouth.
"Industry-academia collaboration doesn't simply end when a project wraps up," Tu stated. He noted that in recent years, they've observed that the traditional model of industry-academia collaboration actually requires even greater emphasis on talent cultivation and continued follow-up in its later stages. As such, roughly three years ago, the center moved beyond the traditional collaboration framework — even after a company completes its product development, the university continues its involvement, helping match companies with professional talent.
Tu noted that Hsinchu-based industrial equipment supplier "Ju Xian R&D Company" is a successful case from this year. A faculty-student team led by Professor Su Hui-Kai of the Department of Electrical Engineering partnered with the company over a 3-year period, helping develop the "Automatic Laser Pipe Welding Machine," which increased laser welding speed while significantly reducing energy consumption. With this guidance, the company also successfully listed on the emerging stock market, marking yet another new milestone in industry-academia collaboration.
Tu added that, looking ahead, professional talent training will involve sending university students to intern — and even find employment — at partner companies, continuing to help businesses further strengthen equipment they have already developed and put into mass production.
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NFU's Innovation Incubation Center helped match a Hsinchu-based industrial equipment supplier with a university professor, guiding the development of an automatic laser pipe welding machine,
opening a new milestone in industry-academia collaboration.
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