The cultivation of talent is at the core of education and the key to national development and increased international competitiveness. NCU’s SPROUT project aims to cultivate and equip students with the key competencies for the new generation. In advancing professional competencies, as many as 83.21 % of the undergraduate students passed digital literacy certifications; on average students improved by 15% this year in the “Chinese Reading and Writing Test for Freshmen” designed especially for the development of NCU. EMI courses (English as the medium of instruction) constitute 16.71% of all NCU courses increasing from previous 14.57%, and 87% of graduates in 2021 passed English proficiency certifications. Ten graduates passed the Second Foreign Language proficiency certifications. In 2022, 71.6% of exchange students at NCU passed digital literacy certifications. In terms of cultivating core and key competencies, the customized teaching and learning innovation support system and the pass rate of teaching practice plans reached 48.57% from 16.13%; teaching innovations were incorporated in the project-based practical work, and the AI research team consisting of female students from the Department of Electrical Engineering won First Prize of the 2022 PAN competition. Students from the Department of Space Science & Engineering were awarded as the First Place and the Third Place of iCASE 2022 CubeSat Mission Design Contest. The University has been actively promoting gender-balanced cross-disciplinary studies and “AI Inter-disciplinary Application” credit course is offered with the enrollment of more than 1,400 female students. Students were consulted to participate in 32 innovative and startup contests at the accumulated amount of NT$2.57 million. There are 56 autonomous learning groups that successfully cultivated three startup teams. The Cloud Infra Lab team was the champion of the 2022 RunSpace competition; in the 1st Semester of 2022, the enrollment number of students taking cross-disciplinary courses grew by 14% compared to that in the 2nd Semester of 2017. For connection-based learning, NCU students were awarded with the "TREE Award” in FITI Program (From IP to IPO). Offering of credit-bearing internship courses increased from 14% to 52% and eight credits of internship courses were additionally offered after the SPROUT Project. NCU held 296 industrial mentor counselling sessions, and the overall response rate of surveys conducted among graduates in the recent five years improved by 11%. In terms of improvement of access to higher education, between 2018 and 2022, the enrollment rate of “Economically Disadvantaged Students in the Freshmen Year of Day Bachelor Program” increased from 7.92% to 9.62% indicating effectiveness of NCU’s student recruitment promotion and incentive packages such as diversified university admission channels. For the establishment of university affairs and research systems, NCU’s Enrollment Professionalization Project received the maximum grants five times in a row with the accumulated amount of NT$22.1 million. Infographics were used to present information related to NCU’s school affairs, and by 2022, in 200 pieces of infographics were completed.
The University has abundant academic capabilities, with nine areas of strength, including geosciences, engineering, materials science, computer science, physics, chemistry, social sciences, clinical medicine, and environment and ecology, entering the top 1% of the global ESI. The total number of published Nature and Science articles by NCU in the past 10 years is ranked fourth in Taiwan, and in 2021, Google Scholar Citations ranked NCU No. 4 in the country. NCU's cross-country collaborations span Asia, Europe, America, and Australia. NCU by 2022 has 277 sister universities, and cooperation for international paper publication reaches 47.1%. U.S. News & World Report 2022 ranked NCU the fifth best University in Taiwan, and ranked NCU first in the country in the “international cooperation” index for eight consecutive years. NCU is actively linking academia and industry to create greater research value. NCU won seven Golden Awards, three Silver Awards, eight Bronze Awards, one Platinum Award of the highest honor in the Taiwan Innotech Expo as well as one Special Award of Foxconn Technology Group. NCU is the biggest winner of the Expo. By cooperating with Covestro AG, the “Covestro Global Energy Curing Innovation Center,” one of the most important R&D centers of Covestro AG, was established at NCU in 2022. This cooperation is a new model in industry-academia collaborations.
To fulfill its university social responsibility, NCU integrates academia and research energy and resources to develop the consensus on environment, education, culture, and circular economy. Through inter-disciplinary cooperation and practices, NCU ensures achievements of UN SDGs. To respond to rapidly changing pandemic development, NCU organized online meetings including Asia PM2.5 Workshop, Consortium of Global Hakka Studies Young Scholars Workshop, Taiwan-Japan Micro-course on Sustainability, and International Social Enterprise Project. The social impact of NCU sustainability, “NCU USR can Help”, is demonstrated through the synchronous on-campus and online blending mode of social innovation contests, self-directed learning fairs, and social enterprise forums. NCU USR has attained social accomplishments in Southeast Asia and the seven administrative regions of Taoyuan over the past five years. In addition, the social practice achievements of NCU USR have been recognized by the 2022 National Sustainable Development Awards Ceremony in the education category, the 2022 Asia-Pacific Sustainability Action Awards-Silver, the 2022 Taiwan Sustainability Action Awards-Gold, and the 3rd place in the national public university of Evaluation on USR held by CommonWealth Magazine.
In terms of Featured International Colleges/disciplines, NCU develops its features on sustainable development by achieving UN SDGs. Featured disciplines of sustainable earth environment: NCU realizes its goals of sustainable earth by tackling environmental pollution, natural disaster prevention, sustainable energy/resource development, linking issues to promote industrial technology transformation, and mitigating environmental deterioration of the earth. NCU expands Critical Zone Observatory(NAHOs) to incorporate international Polar Observing research in order to provide a scientific basis for mitigation policy for climate change. NCU is the first Taiwanese team engaging in Arctic researches. NCU continuously develops radar monitoring research and applications. By exporting information on the precipitation forecast system, NCU helps to improve the forecast capability of extreme climates. NCU worked with France to search for new green energy from the exploration of undersea mining resources. NCU leads industries and businesses to introduce ESG and cultivate international professionals through environmental development-based issues. Features in the discipline of smart system-caring technology: To respond to structural change of next-generation population and industrial transformation, NCU aims to make use of technology to bring more benefits to humans. NCU developed the world’s first FDA certified wearable electrocardiograph machine for the promotion of atrial fibrillation screening program for citizens in Zhongli. NCU set up the “International Cognitive Neuroscience Team” strategic alliance with University of Oxford, UK to participate in international academic protocols. NCU works with SAP ERP, FESTO, and Chunghwa Telecom to establish the 5G smart factory to key cultivate talent in smart manufacturing. NCU works with several hospitals on preventive medicine and set up the first “Chronic Disease Research Center” in Taiwan. “Smart Health Innovation Park on NCU Bade Campus” builds next-generation smart medical system to improve local development and healthcare service quality.