National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a public research university in Taipei, Taiwan. The university was founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as the seventh of the Imperial Universities. It was named Taihoku Imperial University and served during the period of Japanese colonization. After World War II, the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government assumed the administration of the university. The Ministry of Education reorganized and renamed the university to its current name on November 15, 1945, with its roots of liberal tradition from

Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...

in Beijing by former NTU President Fu Ssu-nien. The university consists of 11 colleges, 56 departments, 133 graduate institutes, about 60 research centers, and a school of professional education and continuing studies. Notable alumni include Tsai Ing-Wen, current

President of the Republic of China The president of the Republic of China, now often referred to as the president of Taiwan, is the head of state of the Republic of China (ROC), as well as the commander-in-chief of the Republic of China Armed Forces. The position once had aut ...

, former presidents

Lee Teng-hui Lee Teng-hui (; 15 January 192330 July 2020) was a Taiwanese statesman and economist who served as President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) under the 1947 Constitution and chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1988 to 2000. He was the fir ...

, Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou, Turing Award laureate Andrew Yao, and Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate

Yuan T. Lee Yuan Tseh Lee (; born 19 November 1936) is a Taiwanese chemist and a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He was the first Taiwanese Nobel Prize laureate who, along with the Hungarian-Canadian John C. Polanyi and America ...

. NTU is affiliated with National Taiwan Normal University and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology as part of the NTU System.

History

Imperial University

National Taiwan University has its origins in 臺北帝國大學 Taihoku Imperial University (Taihoku Teikoku Daigaku), founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as a member of the imperial university system administered by the Empire of Japan. The school's first president was . Taihoku Imperial University began with the faculty of Liberal Arts and Law and the Faculty of Science and Agriculture serving 60 students. The university was intended mainly for Japanese nationals; few Taiwanese students were admitted. The Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Engineering were added in 1935 and 1943, respectively.

National University

After World War II, the Republic of China (Taiwan) government reorganized the school as an institution for Chinese-speaking students. The school was renamed ''National Taiwan University'' on 15 November 1945 and

Lo Tsung-lo Lo Tsung-lo (; 2 August 1898 – 26 October 1978) was a Chinese botanist and plant physiologist. Lo was a main founder of modern plant physiology in China. He was the first President of National Taiwan University (after World War II). Biography ...

was appointed as its president. The Literature and Politics division was divided into the College of Liberal Arts and the College of Law. Additionally, colleges of Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Agriculture were established. Initially, there were six colleges with 22 departments. In 1945, student enrollment was 585. In 1960, the night school was initiated on a trial basis, and in 1967 a new night school was established. In 1987, the College of Management was established, followed by the College of Public Health in 1993 and the College of Electrical Engineering in 1997. The College of Electrical Engineering was later reorganized as the College of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. In 1999, the College of Law has renamed the College of Social Sciences, and the Night Division and the Center for Continuing Education were combined to form the School for Professional and Continuing Studies. In 2002, the College of Agriculture has renamed the College of Bio-resources and Agriculture, and in 2002 a College of Life Sciences was added. NTU selected as the national seven universities in research in 2002 (currently merged into six universities). ;Kuan Chung-ming Controversy :

Kuan Chung-ming Kuan Chung-ming (; born 15 August 1956) is a Taiwanese politician and academic. He was the last minister of the Council for Economic Planning and Development from 2013 to 2014 and served as the first minister of the succeeding government agency, ...

, an economist who previously served in the Ma Administration, was named university president-elect in January 2018 but soon became embroiled in allegations related to plagiarism, academic misconduct, and violations of civil code which stipulated that Taiwanese public servants were not permitted to deliver lectures or to be involved in any mainland China-related academic activities due to national security concerns. During the election and the subsequent investigation, Tei-Wei Kuo served as the interim president of the university while the president-elect underwent multiple legal investigations from the ruling DPP government. Though Kuan was eventually cleared of all accusations and officially named as the university president in January 2019 (see ), this prolonged investigation raised suspicion regarding the intervention from the ruling DPP government. Three Ministers of Education stepped down as a result of this event.

Campuses

NTU has a main campus in Daan District, Taipei City and has additional campuses in Taipei, New Taipei City,

Hsinchu County Hsinchu County (Wade–Giles: ''Hsin¹-chu²'') is a county in north-western Taiwan. The population of the county is mainly Hakka; with a Taiwanese aboriginal minority in the southeastern part of the county. Zhubei is the county capital, where ...

, Yunlin County, and

Nantou County Nantou County (; Hokkien POJ: ''Lâm-tâu-koān''; Hakka PFS: ''Nàm-thèu-yen'') is the second largest county of Taiwan by area, located in the central part of the country. It is also the only non-coastal county in Taiwan. Its name derives fro ...

. The main campus is home to most college department buildings and administrative buildings. The university governs farms, forests, and hospitals for education and research purposes. The five campuses are: *Main Campus (113 hectares, located in Daan District, Taipei) *Shuiyuan Campus (7.7 hectares, located in Zhongzheng District, Taipei) *College of Medicine Campus (located in Zhongzheng District) *Yunlin Campus (54 hectares, located in Yunlin County) *Zhubei Campus (22 hectares, located in

)

Other university property

*Visiting professor residences (34 hectares, located on Yangmingshan, Taipei) *University Farm (19.5 hectares, located in Xindian District, New Taipei City) *Wenshan Botanical Garden (5 hectares, located in Shiding District, New Taipei City) *Highland Experimental Farm (1,019 hectares, located in

) *Experimental Forest Office (25.9 hectares, located in

) *Experimental Forest (33,310 hectares, located in

)

Academics

The university comprises 11 colleges: Liberal Arts, Engineering, Science, Social Sciences, Law, Bio-Resources & Agriculture, Management, Public Health, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, Medicine, and Life Science. NTU offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctorate degrees in many disciplines. NTU requires most of its undergraduate students to take a mandatory core curriculum, comprising Chinese, freshman English, physical education, and public service. The medical school in addition dictates each of its students to take

philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...

and sociology classes as well as seminars in ethics and thanatology.

Military training Military education and training is a process which intends to establish and improve the capabilities of military personnel in their respective roles. Military training may be voluntary or compulsory duty. It begins with recruit training, proceed ...

is no longer an obligatory course for male students, but it is a prerequisite if they plan to apply to become officers during their compulsory military service. NTU's programs cover a wide array of disciplines across science, arts, and the humanities, with up to 8,000 courses made available for selection each semester. Students are able to select courses offered by any of the colleges; however, compulsory subjects designated for each major needs to be completed to be awarded a degree. A student must declare a major during college application, some majors are more competitive than others and require a higher national examination score. In recent years, medicine,

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, law, and

finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

have been the most selective majors. Most majors take four years to complete while both the dental and the medical degrees take six years to finish. The International Chinese Language Program (ICLP), founded by

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

, is located at National Taiwan University. NTU is a member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, Washington University in St. Louis's McDonnell International Scholars Academy, and the Association of East Asian Research Universities. NTU also participates in several programs of the Taiwan International Graduate Program of

Academia Sinica Academia Sinica (AS, la, 1=Academia Sinica, 3=Chinese Academy; ), headquartered in Nangang, Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. Founded in Nanking, the academy supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from ...

, Taiwan's most preeminent academic research institution.

University rankings

National Taiwan University is widely considered to be the best university in Taiwan. The QS World University Rankings (2023) placed it at 77th worldwide. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (2023) placed it at 187th worldwide. With other peering references of academic ranking, NTU also releases NTU World Universities ranking annually on the Double Ten Day, the National Holiday of the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...

. The individual subject rankings from QS rankings in 2022 were: 24th in Classic and Ancient History, 36th in Modern languages, 38th in Civil and Structural Engineering, 42nd in Linguistic, 46th in Medicine, 47th in Nursing, 48th in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and 50th in Material Science.

List of presidents

The president heads the university. Each college is headed by a dean and each department by a chairman. Students elect their own representatives each year to attend administrative meetings.

National Taiwan University

* Since 8 January 2023 *

: 8 January 2019 - 7 January 2023 * (interim): October 2017 – January 2019 *: June 2013 – June 2017 *

Lee Si-chen Lee Si-chen (; born 13 August 1952 in Gangshan, Kaohsiung, Taiwan), is a Taiwanese engineer specializing in semiconductors, a researcher in amorphous silicon in the early development in Taiwan, and an IEEE Fellow. He has been a professor of electr ...

: August 2005 – June 2013 *

Chen Wei-jao Chen Wei-jao (; born 15 November 1939) is a Taiwanese surgeon and academic administrator. Early life and career Chen was born in Taichū Prefecture on 15 November 1939. He studied medicine at National Taiwan University (NTU) and completed his ...

: 22 June 1993 – June 2005 *: March 1993 – June 1993 *: August 1984 – February 1993 *: August 1981 – July 1984 *

Yen Cheng-hsing Yen Chen-hsing (; 10 July 1912 – 7 January 2005) was a Chinese-born engineer, educator, and politician based in Taiwan. Early life and education Yen graduated from National Tsing Hua University in Beijing and moved to the United States in 1 ...

: June 1970 – July 1981 * Chien Szu-liang: January 1951 – May 1970 *: December 1950 – January 1951 *

Fu Szu-nien Fu Ssu-nien (; 26 March 1896 – 20 December 1950), was a Chinese historian, linguist, and writer. He was one of the leaders of the May Fourth Movement in 1919. He was also one of the creators of the Academia Sinica, and was named director of th ...

: January 1949 – December 1950 *: June 1948 – December 1948 *

Lu Chih-houng Lu Chih-houng (; 1897–1973), courtesy name Youhai (), was a Chinese/Taiwanese educator, metallographist, materials scientist and engineer. Biography Lu was born into a prominent family in Jiaxing, Zhejiang, Qing dynasty. His family was descend ...

: August 1946 – May 1948 *

: August 1945 – July 1946

Taihoku Imperial University

Kazuo Ando Kazuo (カズオ, かずお) is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible spellings It has several written forms, and the meaning depends on the characters used (usually kanji, but sometimes hiragana). Common forms include: * 一雄: first son, ...

(安藤一雄): March 1945 – August 1945 *: April 1941 – March 1945 *: September 1937 – April 1941 *: March 1928 – September 1937

Alumni

NTU has produced many notable alumni. Tsai Ing-Wen, the current President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), as well as former presidents

, Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou, all graduated from NTU. Both Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate

and Turing Award laureate Andrew Yao received their Bachelor of Science from the university. Many NTU electrical engineering graduates have gone on to build global companies, including

Quanta Computer Quanta Computer Incorporated () () is a Taiwan-based manufacturer of notebook computers and other electronic hardware. Its customers include Apple Inc., Dell, Hewlett-Packard Inc., Acer Inc., Alienware, Amazon.com, Cisco, Fujitsu, Gericom, Lenov ...

's Barry Lam, Mediatek's

Tsai Ming-kai Tsai Ming-kai (; born 6 April 1950, in Taiwan) is a Taiwanese entrepreneur, currently Chairman of MediaTek. In 2014, according to Forbes he was ranked 20th Taiwanese by net worth ($1.80 billion). In 2014 he was 21st in the "Best-Performing CEOs i ...

and Garmin's

Min Kao Min or MIN may refer to: Places * Fujian, also called Mǐn, a province of China ** Min Kingdom (909–945), a state in Fujian * Min County, a county of Dingxi, Gansu province, China * Min River (Fujian) * Min River (Sichuan) * Mineola (Amt ...

Notes

References

External links

Official website in English
Educational institutions established in 1928 Universities and colleges in Taipei 1928 establishments in Taiwan Comprehensive universities in Taiwan