Spotlight
A Cradle of Talent in the Indo-Pacific
Wen-Chang Chen, the President of National Taiwan University, speaks to QS Insights Magazine, discusses how National Taiwan University is using it's geopolitical advantages to support students from Taiwan and around the world.
"I think that NTU or Taiwan, we have the advantage of accepting different cultures."
QS: Tell us about the history of NTU.
President Wen-Chang Chen: We are going to celebrate 100 years in 2028, but, before we became National Taiwan University, we were established by the Japanese as the Taiwan Hospital in 1895. And after that, we became the Taiwan Hospital Medical Training Institute in 1897. And I think the follow-up, we became the Taihoku Imperial University in 1928. At that time, we were one of the nine imperial universities established by the Japanese. Then we were renamed in1945 and became the National Taiwan University.
At that time, we had six colleges, including the liberal arts and also engineering college, agriculture college and medical school. Now, we have 17 colleges and also our student numbers grew to around 35,000. Half of them are undergraduate, half of them are graduate, and we have faculty of around 2,000.
QS: The university has aimed its sights on becoming what it calls a “cradle of talent: within the Indo-Pacific region. What do you see as NTU's advantages in this area?
WCC: NTU was the Taihoku Imperial University, so we have the culture from Japan. And after that, we have had many other channels. There has been a strong influence on our culture.
At the same time, after World War II, our manufacturing industry was strongly influenced by the Japanese and the Americans. Throughout the 60s and 90s, about 80 percent of our students were going to the United States for a PhD.
I think that NTU or Taiwan, we have the advantage of accepting different cultures. Not only manufacturing but our scholars. And that became a very significant geographical advantage for NTU because our students, we accept the culture from the United States, Japan, and many other channels. I think that's a very unique culture at NTU.
QS: What are the challenges to overcome in becoming that cradle of talent?
WCC: About 20 years ago, NTU was seen as the top university not only in Taiwan, also in Asia. And now we have faced some challenges. Our faculty, they work hard. Our students, they work hard. The problem we are facing is of recruiting good professors and good international students.
Because of strong competition from the world, many countries, they are promoting their higher education sectors. Therefore, they have very large resources to recruit good professors and good students.
QS: Ultimately, when I speak to vice chancellors from elsewhere, their complaints are also always resources. How do you overcome that?
WCC: What I can do is that, first of all, I try to get the donations from either alumni or industries. I have a goal. I have to raise about US$300 million before 2028 to celebrate our 100-year anniversary. That's my goal. And luckily, I already have 60 percent. So that's the first thing; I try to persuade our alumni and industry to do that.
Secondly, I try to establish international joint laboratory and international joint centres. I try to select around 10 to 15 very important partner universities to focus on; the areas that we need to promote. Through international collaboration, they can make up some of the resources we did not have and also produce a very high-impact or influenceable results or paper or achievement. That's what I try to do.
Another method is in every country, we select the top high school. We provide full scholarship, so we can be competitive with other countries. We’ve already signed more than 40 high schools around the world. So every year, we can get, for example, about 100 top high school students from around the world.
QS: Given its locations, Taiwan has distinct geopolitical advantages. NTU set up a School of Political Science and Economics, and I'm curious as to how that school uses these advantages.
WCC: The School of Political Science and Economics was proposed by me, and there are a few reasons why I proposed that. One is that I think that NTU needs an all-English-teaching international college. We have a few departments, but we do not have a complete all-English-teaching college.
Secondly, I think that geopolitical importance, I think that we are in the right time to set up a school of political science and economics.
The third thing is that for this college, we have different kind of salary systems compared to other colleges. So in this case, we can recruit the very top university professors to join NTU or students.
And the fourth thing is that I want to make a very different college compared to others. I want to make a very strong connection with the important and leading universities in the world. And through not only the exchange or double degree, I hope to have a co-teaching, co-joined professor, co-supervising our students.
We already have agreements with, for example, Waseda University in Japan, the University of Melbourne in Australia, Berkeley in the US, and Sciences Po in France. We also ask our students to exchange or visit those universities. That requires coursework.
The final thing is very different from other universities. In my mind, because our purpose is to cultivate the new leader for political science, economics or finance, we think that this kind of student not only needs to know about the political science or economics or finance, they need to know a new college, new technology. They need to have the liberal arts training, and also they need to have the sustainability. In this case, we ask the students to select a module from another college. For example, they need to select a module from electrical engineering and computer science, or from chemical engineering and medicine. They need to do some course module, three or four courses as a module. They need to know new technology.
They can also select a module for liberal arts. In this case, that's totally different from other schools of political science or economics
QS: Give your expertise in chemical engineering and polymer science, it's interesting that somebody that you’d create a school of political science and economics. Your legacy at NTU isn’t going to be in polymers, it's going to be in political science and economics.
WCC: Many people have asked me the same question: why did you have this kind of idea? I took a look at NTU and I thought, well, we’re very strong in engineering, electrical engineering, medical. The College of Science and Management, they are strong colleges. For the social science, liberal arts, they do not have enough resources. But as I can see from NTU’s history, I think that if we can make the social science or liberal arts or management stronger, I think that it can also help our manufacturing industry.
I always ask students; do you think that you can make more money as an engineering or if you became a banker or run an investment company? It's the investor or the bankers that make more money, because they know how to get a good property, or invest in a good company. When I established the college, what I wanted was to our social science, liberal arts and management college. Another goal is is trying to get our students from these areas involved in Taiwan’s industry, and I think that will make the university more balanced.
QS: We've already touched on a little bit, but I'm curious about the short-term plans for NTU are over the next three years' time. 2028, you'll be celebrating 100 years, you'll have 300 million US raised from alumni; are there any other short-term goals between then and now?
WCC: One is that I think that we need to excite our professors to work on the important and influential subjects. Not only our current professors, we need to hire new, good professors, too.
The second thing is that in my age, when I was an undergraduate, we had around 80 percent if students go abroad. Right now, only 20 percent of students go abroad for a degree. Therefore, I have our Office of International Affairs join with our other divisions. We also proposed NTU Beyond Borders, to let our students go abroad. I want our students to be more motivated and also that they have the courage to become the top leader in the world.
We’re going to start constructing two new campus. One is the Xuzhou campus, the location of the School of Political Science and Economics. And the other one is the Zhubei campus. Zhubei campus, we have one building, but it's a very large area and also close to Science Base Park in Hsinchu and Biomedical Park in Hsinchu. That campus is going to become the Entrepreneurship Campus and strongly connect to the Science Base Park in Zhubei and the biomedical group. I want to build that campus to become the NTU connection to the Science Base Park in Hsinchu and the Biomedical Park in Hsinchu.