October 5, 2016 – Chang Gung University (CGU) signed a memorandum of academic exchange and student exchange programme with National University of Singapore (NUS) at the Shengen Exhibition Hall of the College of Engineering (CoE). This is the first time that the Faculty of Science of NUS has signed a student exchange program with Taiwan's universities. Students from CGU can now study at one of the world's top universities without having to pay additional tuition fees. This also indicates the recognition of CGU's academia. Furthermore, it provides students from CoE with more learning channels and student exchange opportunities.

NUS is one of the world's leading first-class institutions with its ranking of 12th in the QS World University Rankings and ranked at first place in Asia. Whilst CGU is placed among the top universities in Taiwan, it is also ranked among QS Asia's top 100 universities. Hence, the cooperation between both universities is indeed heartening.

The memorandum was signed by Prof. Lai Chao Sung, Dean of the Engineering College of CGU, and Prof. Roger Choon Ee Tan, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Science of NUS at the signing ceremony, while both Associate Prof. Prasan Kumar Sahoo, Director of the Center for International Academic Cooperation, and Prof. Tan Cher-Ming, Director of the Center for Reliability Science and Technologies (CReST) attended the ceremony together with CoE faculty members, staffs and students. Our CoE has the most complete reliability courses in Asia, and has attracted much attention from NUS with the hope that students will visit Taiwan for gaining such knowledge, thus promoting the academic exchange and student exchange programs. Therefore, CReST of CGU, the very first center in Asia, has finally found its limelight as well as its promoter Prof. Tan Cher-Ming.

Prof. Tan, from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, was appointed as a reliability expert by CGU two years ago. He is also the Chair of the Certified Reliability Engineers Program in the Singapore Quality Institute (SQI) and a Fellow of SQI. In addition to the establishment of the Taiwan’s only CReST in CGU, Prof. Tan also established a complete set of reliability courses for universities and graduate students. In the future, he will launch an industrial service platform which offers third party reliability assessment to provide reliability testing and analysis services for the SMEs.

In addition to improving the quality of industrial products and market advantages, the Product Reliability technology can also promote national economic growth. Currently, the testing commonly performed by external parties is mostly just able to show that whether the products are meeting the eligibility criteria, but unable to understand in depth the true extent of the product quality and life cycle. Through scientific testing and reliability analysis, one can make the product at a reasonable cost to improve its value and competitiveness. Nevertheless, there are difficulties in getting professional talents from this discipline since it has a complex and interdisciplinary scientific nature. In addition, there has been a lack of sound learning course planning and research programs in the Asian region. Therefore, NUS is in favour of CGU’s investment on the said planning, hoping to send students to learn in order to become one of the characteristics of NUS in the near future.

Both parties will initially arrange for the exchange of students for one semester each time, which will be commenced on the first half of next year. The main purpose of Singapore students coming to Taiwan is to enrol in the professional reliability course, while CGU exchange students can utilise this opportunity to step into NUS, not only to experience the World-class lecture but also learn in an all-English environment, report or express their views in English, as well as get to know international students from around the world. On the other hand, NUS exchange students can learn from local students in different cultures through the CGU’s Asia outstanding reliability course.