National Taiwan University (NTU; ) is a national research university in Taipei, Taiwan. Founded in 1928 during Japanese rule as Taihoku Imperial University (), it was the seventh Imperial University of the Empire of Japan and is the oldest university in the country.
The university has three major campuses in Taipei and operates satellite campuses across the country. It hosts over 200 degree programs and consists of 17 colleges, including the College of Medicine, and 61 departments, 152 affiliated research institutes, and more than 100 other national research centers, such as the National Taiwan University Hospital. Its financial endowment of NT$67.3 billion (US$2.24 billion) is the largest in the country and one of the largest in Asia.
National Taiwan University has institutional affiliations with the Harvard–Yenching Institute, the Max Planck Society, the Institute for Advanced Study, and produces the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities. It publishes academic works through its university press, the National Taiwan University Press. In 2015, NTU formed a university system with the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and National Taiwan Normal University.
Notable graduates of the university include five presidents of the Republic of China, six vice-presidents of the Republic of China, more than 120 members of Academia Sinica, and 25 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, in addition to Nobel Prize, Turing Award, and Wolf Prize laureates. It has also produced the heads of other major universities, such as the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
History
Imperial University (1928–1945)
During the Japanese rule of Taiwan (1895–1945), the Empire of Japan established the modern Taiwanese education system by installing educational institutions that used Western-style academic systems. Den Kenjirō, the Governor-General of Taiwan, proposed the establishment of a university in Taiwan in 1922 and Japanese prime minister Tanaka Giichi presented a bill titled "Establishment of the Taiwan Imperial University" to the Cabinet of Japan on February 25, 1928. It was planned to be located on the grounds of the Taihoku Senior School of Agriculture and Forestry in Taihoku Prefecture.
On March 16, 1928, National Taiwan University was founded as "Taihoku Imperial University" (; ), the seventh of the Japanese Empire's Imperial Universities. It was Taiwan's first and only university and primarily served to promote Japanese culture, assimilate the local population, and direct students to professions useful to colonial expansion.; . The first freshman class was inaugurated on April 30, 1928, with classes beginning on May 5. Of the 1931 graduating class, 41 students were Japanese and five were Taiwanese.
The first faculties founded at Taihoku Imperial University were the Faculty of Literature and Politics and the Faculty of Science and Agriculture, totalling 59 students. Subsequently, the Faculty of Medicine was established in 1935 and the Faculty of Engineering was established in 1943. The Faculty of Science and Agriculture was divided in 1943 as two separate colleges: the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Agriculture. Because the university was considered a part of expanding the Japanese colonial empire in the Pacific Ocean, it was supported by multiple Japanese scholars and received government research grants for funding policy programs. Taiwanese students could not compete with Japanese students since the university prioritized Japanese enrollment. From 1928 to 1943, the university's student body was approximately 80 percent Japanese and 20 percent Taiwanese. Of its more than 300 faculty members in 1940, all professorships but one were held by Japanese scholars.
Taihoku granted degrees after a minimum of six years of study. College classes consisted of lectures taught by professors, assistant professors, and other faculty. By 1945, it had five colleges with a total of 114 lecture courses. The university's first president was Japanese historian (1928–1937), a graduate of Tokyo Imperial University who was appointed to the presidency on March 16, 1928. Japanese scholar Toyohachi Fujita (1869–1929) was appointed as the first dean of the Faculty of Literature and Politics while Kintaro Oshima was named the inaugural dean of the Faculty of Science and Agriculture. Enrollment years were shortened during World War II and university functions were limited following the American bombing of Taipei, which damaged its main gate and boulevard.
National University (1945–present)
After the Surrender of Japan in September 1945, the government of the Republic of China (ROC) assumed control of the university and initiated sinicization reforms. On August 15, 1945, the Kuomintang government appointed Lo Tsung-lo, a Japanese-educated academic, to oversee the transition of Taihoku's curriculum, teaching system, and faculties from its Japanese administration. At the time, the university had 1,614 faculty and staff members to teach 1,767 students, 351 of whom were Taiwanese. All Japanese students were later transferred back to Japan.
Under the Kuomintang, the ROC government initiated a program of reforming all universities and colleges in accordance with Chinese models that incorporated American academics, administration, and organization, in addition to installing American curriculum and degree requirements. Reforms also had the goal of reversing the Japanization that had influenced Taiwan during Japanese rule. Universities and colleges were opened to Taiwanese students without restrictions; Taihoku Imperial University was renamed "National Taiwan University" in November 1945 and it was reorganized and expanded to six faculties: Liberal Arts, Law, Science, Medicine, Engineering, and Agriculture.; . Up to 500 students could enroll in each faculty and the enrollment period was standardized to four years as opposed to the Japanese system of three to six years. Under governor Chen Yi, however, the school received no government funding from 1945 to 1947, causing it to cease operations until Chinese historian Fu Ssu-nien assumed the presidency. Fu oversaw the abolition of the Japanese college-preparatory school system and, by the end of 1947, the university operated entirely on a Chinese higher education model. The university became the most prominent educational institution in the country, with more than 80 percent of all Taiwanese high school applicants listing the university as their preferred choice for college admission by 1977. In the following decades after World War II, National Taiwan University underwent rapid expansion. A night school was established to provide continuing education for adults in 1955 and the NTU Research Library was completed in 1968. The College of Management, the College of Public Health, and the College of Electrical Engineering were established in 1987, 1993, and 1997, respectively. The NTU Department of Law was expanded to the NTU College of Law in 1999 and the College of Life Science was established in 2003. In November 2003, the university consisted of ten colleges, 52 academic departments, 82 graduate institutes, 1,778 full-time faculty, and more than 27,000 students. By 2009, NTU grew to 54 departments, 100 graduate institutes (which offered 100 master's programs and 91 doctoral programs in total), and 25 research centers, including the Center for Condensed Matter Sciences, the Center for Biotechnology, the Japanese Research Center, and others.
Campus Main campus
The main campus of National Taiwan University occupies in the Da'an District of Taipei, with its principal entrance at 1 Roosevelt Road, Section 4. The site includes most of the university's colleges and administrative buildings. It houses some of the country's best-preserved examples of red brick Japanese colonial architecture.
The campus developed from the grounds of an agricultural and forestry school established by the Government-General of Taiwan in 1919, which was successively reorganized before being incorporated into Taihoku Imperial University in 1928. Much of the historic core constructed after the imperial university's establishment survives along Royal Palm Boulevard, an east–west avenue that forms the principal axis of the campus. Its original plan was influenced by American Beaux-Arts, Renaissance, and neoclassical planning principles, with a Baroque axis and terminal vistas organizing the central campus. Royal Palm Boulevard itself was laid out around 1932, when horticultural faculty and farm staff planted royal palms and other tropical and native vegetation throughout the grounds. The boulevard forms three plazas along its axis—University Plaza, Fu Bell Plaza, and the Main Library plaza—which altogether function as student venues.
Several buildings that predate or date from the early years of Taihoku Imperial University remain prominent features of the campus. Of the campus buildings built after World War II, the majority are a hybrid of Chinese and Western architecture, 20 of which were designed by architect Wang Da-hong. The Administration Building, completed in 1926 for the predecessor Taihoku Advanced Academy of Agronomy and Forestry, is a Taipei city-designated heritage site constructed primarily of red brick and distinguished by a portico supported by four Corinthian columns. Across Royal Palm Boulevard, the College of Liberal Arts building was completed in 1929 for the Faculty of Literature and Politics and is another city-designated heritage site. Its exterior combines ribbed tile with Romanesque elements, including arched windows and doorways, gables, and ornamental corner tiles characteristic of the imperial-era buildings lining the boulevard. The former main library was begun in 1929, with its stacks and reading room completed in 1931, and now houses the Gallery of NTU History.
The campus continued to expand following the reorganization of the imperial university as National Taiwan University in 1945, gradually introducing modernist forms alongside the earlier eclectic architecture. The Civil Engineering Building, completed in 1955, was among the first postwar structures to depart substantially from the earlier campus vocabulary, using horizontal lines associated with the International Style rather than the stronger vertical emphasis of the buildings along Royal Palm Boulevard. The First Student Activity Center, designed by Taiwanese architect Wang Da-hong in 1961 and completed in the early 1960s, combined modern construction with features drawn from traditional Chinese architecture, including red, black, and gold surfaces, courtyards, porticos, and folded roofs.A renewed period of campus planning beginning around the 1980s sought to reconcile later development with the surviving imperial-era plan. The present Main Library, completed in 1998 at the eastern end of Royal Palm Boulevard, contains five stories above ground and one below and incorporates arched windows and other architectural motifs derived from the earlier campus buildings. More recent additions have introduced contemporary architecture into the historic campus plan, including the College of Social Sciences complex designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito. Its Koo Chen-Fu Memorial Library is enclosed on three sides by floor-to-ceiling glass and supported internally by 88 irregularly arranged columns, with curved bamboo bookshelves intended to give the reading room the appearance of a grove. The Humanities Building, one of the newest major buildings near the entrance to campus, uses exposed concrete and a perforated brick façade facing Royal Palm Boulevard, with large-span bridges connecting portions of the structure. In 2024, the building received first place in the public construction and space revitalization category of Taiwan's Golden Stone Awards.