Ireland and China collaborate in new funding initiative
2 February 2004

Dr Andy Way and Dr Xiaojun Wang

In December 2002, the 'Ireland-China Research Collaboration Fund Agreement', funded by the Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People's Republic of China (MOST), was signed. The agreement is worth €1million and is intended to build on the existing relationship between China and Ireland, and encourage future cooperation in two areas of research: information and communications technology and biotechnology.

Dr Andy Way, Senior Lecturer in the School of Computing at DCU was awarded a grant for his research project on 'English-Chinese example-based machine translation via the web'. This is a joint project in machine translation with the Harbin Institute of Technology which aims to develop a bidirectional Example-Based Machine Translation (EBMT) system for English-Chinese, capable of translating sports news items as its first application. This is especially relevant, given that the Olympic Games will be held in China in 2008. The system will facilitate cross-language Chinese-English information acquisition and improve communication between speakers of the world's two largest languages.

RINCE researchers Dr Xiaojun Wang and Dr Martin Collier have also been awarded a grant towards their project on optimized processing in network processor units for high-performance routers. The project will be carried out in close collaboration with Professor Bin Liu group in Tsinghua University, China. This furthers the Irish/Chinese academic linkages already established by Dr Wang.

Dr William C. Harris, Director General of SFI, said the grants would increase the extent and the quality of exchange between the two countries; "The goal of this agreement is to build links between Irish academic research leaders and their Chinese counterparts with a view to encouraging and sustaining research excellence in fields of investigation that are vital to both China and Ireland".

The Chinese Ambassador, His Excellency Dr Sha Hailin, on behalf on MOST, commented, "The awards made under the Ireland-China Research Collaboration Fund Agreement are part of our ongoing efforts to build thriving and successful collaborative research links between our two countries. These links will be further enhanced by these grants".