According to a report in Evaluation Bimonthly by Higher Education Evaluation & Accreditation Council of Taiwan, 31 universities in Taiwan managed to get in the 1% of universities whose ESI papers are cited most in 2009 and TKU is among them. TKU ranked 16th for the number of ESI papers published. In the academic field of active index, TKU’s chemistry area got the 2nd place, only next to Chung Yuan University, but above Taiwan University and Tsing Hua University.

According to Essential Science Indicators by the United States Institute for Scientific Information, the citation rate of TKU’s ESI papers is 3.94 times this year which is higher than that of the last year (3.6 times). TKU’s average number of papers per professor is 3.68 which is more than that of the last year (3.64). TKU has 5 highly frequently cited ESI papers, 3 more than those of the last year. These index indicators not only show the qualities of the papers but also their academic influence worldwide. The number of TKU’s ESI papers on engineering ranked 375th place, 17 up than that of the last year. The times of citations of the papers ranked 532nd place, 54 up than that of the last year. TKU’s subject active index ranked 12th in Taiwan.

Academic Vice President Kan-nan Chen expressed that TKU has been carrying out the policy that requires assistant professors to obtain their promotions in 8 years, encouraging them to publish papers for their promotions. In recent years, TKU has also pay attention to applicants’ publications and research potentials when recruiting faculty members. Evaluation Regulations also encourage faculty members to publish papers. Thus the number of publications is on the rise. It is not really easy for TKU to achieve such a status, as we didn’t get financial subsidy from MOE’s “Five Years, Fifty Billion” for some universities.

The Dean of the College of Engineering, Gwo-hsing Yu pointed out that to enhance the academic research strength and capacity, the College has actively established a research environment. For example, the College has annually put NT$3 million to assist major research projects for 5 years, especially the two important areas of wind engineering research and robot research. At the same time, the College has implemented an experiment equipment fund distribution plan in a rotating system every 3 years to make a high quality environment for teaching, experiment and research. Further the College has actively persuaded excellent students to stay for their graduate studies by offering them a combination of both B.S. and M.S degrees in 5 years. All these measures have helped to enhance the College’s research capacities.

Chemistry Chair Bo-cheng Wang said that the Department of Chemistry has been encouraging faculty members to devote themselves to research and establish research groups for faculty members with similar research interests. The Department regularly holds symposia for teachers to exchange their research experiences and gains. Moreover, the Department financially rewards assistant professors who have published SCI papers, encouraging teachers to devote themselves to research and publications. ( ~Dean X. Wang )