Talent training is at the core of education, and also the key to national development and increased international competitiveness. NCU’s SPROUT project aims at training and equipping students with the key competencies for the new generation. Accomplishment status is detailed as follows: In regard to advancing professional competencies, Chinese reading and writing skills are enhanced by promoting practical courses and organizing various creative contests. Freshmen made 15.7% improvement in the reading and writing test result and they borrowed 0.45% more books. EMI courses (English as medium of instruction) constitute 16.6% of all NCU courses, and diverse foreign language requirements for graduation are adopted to encourage improvement of students’ foreign language ability. As many as 85% of the undergraduate students took programming courses, and results of all calculus programming assignments were included in the official grade report, with the submission rate at 85%. For developing core and key competencies, custom-made teaching innovation and support system was introduced to assist teachers in getting external project incubation, which went as high as 64.7%, and the teaching plans were included in the teacher evaluation and promotion scheme to recognize teachers’ diverse contributions. Teaching innovations were incorporated in the project-based practical work, helping students to local and international awards, including three Platinum Awards in the 2020 Taiwan Innotech Expo, plus 3 Gold, 5 Silver, and 2 Bronze prizes; NCU had a total of 13 prize-winning works, which made the University the biggest winner nationwide.
In the 2020 Taiwan Innotech Expo, NCU students won 3 Platinum Awards, as well as 3 Gold, 5 Silver, and 2 Bronze Prizes, totaling 13 prize winning works, making NCU the biggest winner.
NCU’s IDEA School weaves human-oriented designs with solution-seeking efforts; this helps stimulate students’ boundless creativity. The interdisciplinary learning system is adjusted based on cost-benefit analysis, and applications for interdisciplinary program from the Department of Mechanical Engineering grew by 190%. The College of Earth Sciences has upgraded the college-based interdisciplinary program, lifting the number of participants above the target of 200. In terms of integrating knowledge, action, and innovation, NCU has engaged in interdisciplinary co-training collaboration with smart factories as the training bases. NCU also won the first prize in the BioASQ international AI biomedicine competition.
NCU won the first prize in the BioASQ international AI biomedicine competition.
Completion rate of establishing a flexible internship system increased 20% compared to the previous academic year. In 2020, freshmen’s completion rate of the UCAN program was 93%. Steady growth of the recovery rates was maintained, with growth rates of 0.74%, 4.29%, and 2.15% at the 1st, 3rd, and 5th years after graduation. NCU also achieved the best recruitment result in 2020, with individual enrollment vacancy rate at only 2.4%.
In terms of the publicity of higher education, NCU cooperate with companies to donate funds to the “NCU Scholarships” actively; at the same time, import empirical analysis of school affairs research data to implement multiple selection of talents; and integrate school-wide resources to conduct face-to-face interviews by the “peace-of-mind study” task force to help students with economic and culture weakness to relieve their burden and to study at ease.
In collaboration with ACES Electronics, students donated the fund raised through NCU second-hand market to the NCU Scholarships.
The “peace-of-mind study” task force conducted individual interviews with hidden cases of financially deprived students.
NCU has developed its advantages and characteristics by applying its solid academic capacity. According to the ESI database, NCU had 1.27% HiCi papers in 2020, making it top three in Taiwan. In addition, the SciVal system revealed that NCU was the third in Taiwan in terms of “H5-index” for the quality of research papers in the past five years, showing that the University had effectively maintained its academic and research capacity and quality.
NCU has developed academic research cooperation throughout Asia, Europe, America, and Australia. According to the U.S. News & World Report 2021, NCU ranks fourth in Taiwan in the Best Global Universities, with the “international cooperation” index consistently standing at the first place nationwide for seven years in a row. In the Global Views Monthly’s 2020 best university rankings, NCU also topped the nation with its high percentage (42.6%) of “international co-authorship rate”. NCU cooperated with Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland in building the polar earthquake database at the “Polar Earthquake Workstation” and signed an MOU with the National Academy of Marine Research for collaborative effort in polar marine environmental monitoring and investigation; it opened up Taiwan’s way to the international arena of polar research. NCU has actively linked up academic and industrial resources to create research value. Assistant Professor Chen-Han Huang participated in the world’s largest consumer electronics exhibition CES in Las Vegas, USA in January 2020. His “portable food allergen detection system,” launched under Taiwan User-Friendly Sensor and Tech Ltd. he founded, gained the judges’ favor and won the CES 2020 Innovation Awards. NCU has also signed a cooperation agreement with Royal DSM, the leading Dutch green chemical manufacturer, for establishing a joint R&D center in NCU. It represents an innovative way of university-industry collaboration and sets a new example of cooperating with international enterprises.
Signing a cooperation agreement with Royal DSM, the leading Dutch green chemical manufacturer
The “Sustainable Earth Environment” academy has established the first critical zone observatory in Taiwan. The academy has signed a MOU with the National Academy of Marine Research for promoting investigation of marine environmental data. The academies will also jointly start an international laboratory for polar climate change observation in the North Pole. The NCU earthquake detection workstation will be established to bring Taiwan’s climate change research to the frontier. NCU has also signed an MOU with the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Atomic Energy Council, Executive Yuan for joint effort in the “research and development of radioactive waste disposal technology” to solve the problem of nuclear waste. Collaboration with the Central Weather Bureau is also made for meteorological observation using UAV and thereby finding direct evidence of air pollution. NCU has also launched the “Rain Forecast Helper” App for the National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, Ministry of Science and Technology, which updates data every 10 minutes and informs the people of rainfall information in an hour, so people’s weather forecast capability can be greatly improved. Faculty members in this team had two groundbreaking research projects passing the MOST Shackleton Program; they were “Geological Uncertainty and Societal Risk: the Perspectives of Engineering, Environment, and Geohazards” and “Muon Imaging for Particle Geophysics and the Next Generation of High Energy Physics Experiment”. (Only 22 projects passed the review nationwide.) Teachers in this team also won the 2020 “MOST Ta-You Wu Memorial Award” and 2020 MOST Young Scholar Fellowship, and their innovative results had been published consecutively in the June, September, and October issues of The Astrophysical Journal this year.
Signing cooperation agreement with the National Academy of Marine Research to start an international laboratory for polar climate change observation
In the area of “smart system for care technology”, the first chronic disease research center in Taiwan was established. The food safety IoT – smart allergen detection system won the “CES 2020 Innovation Awards” and the “2020 National Innovation Award – Innovation and Advancement Award”; the food safety fast screening IoB detection system won the “2020 FutureTech Award”; faculty members in this team won the 2020 “MOST Ta-You Wu Memorial Award”; the prognosis analysis system and method for predicting prognosis of cancer radiotherapy won the “2020 Taiwan Innotech Expo – Platinum Award” (only 12 projects won this honor nationwide) and the “Drug Research and Development Award – Bronze Award” jointly offered by the MOHW and MOEA. The College has worked with the University of Oxford, UK and many other Taiwan universities to form the “International Neuroscience Team” for developing bilateral cooperation programs of strategic academic alliances. FESTO’s integrated system was introduced to launch the smart factory for establishing a robot technology center in collaboration with Delta Electronics.
The team of Associate Professor Chen Lin and Professor Men-Tzung Lo from the College of Health Sciences & Technology won the MOST Epidemic Prevention Subsidy/Grant and the Bronze Prize of “Drug Research and Development Award” jointly offered by MOHW and MOEA.
Assistant Professor Chen-Han Huang from the College of Health Sciences & Technology won a number of major awards (CES 2020 Innovation Awards, 2020 National Innovation Award – Innovation and Advancement Award, and 2020 FutureTech Award).
NCU signed an agreement with Delta Electronics for the establishment of the Cooperative Robot Technology Center.
Working with ITRI College for the promotion of “smart manufacturing personnel training program” to design the Industry 4.0 fundamental courses with the FESTO smart factory resources.
On top of the enhancement of academic research capacity and development of professional knowledge and skills, NCU is also concerned with the fulfillment of its social responsibility. The University integrates internal and external resources to develop consensus on the sustainable development of the environment, education, culture, and economy together with local forces. It helps Taoyuan City Government in implementing the forward-looking program of “Taoyuan Coastal Environment and Science Education Program” to promote environmental education. NCU also works with the Central Weather Bureau to develop the “Taoyuan Marine Environment Monitoring Network”, which constitutes the most important infrastructure for the coastal environment monitoring database. A further step is taken to form international connection; signed four international partnership agreements for international air pollution detection IoT, sharing our observation results with other countries.
Fieldwork of the USR program covers the eight administrative districts of Taoyuan City, and connection is made with schools, public offices, social enterprises, and local communities to augment local identification and social influence.
Organizing Taoyuan USR Alliance workshop by inviting partnering schools, CSR representatives, government representatives for exchanges of inter-school and interdisciplinary accomplishments