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CommonWealth University Citizen (USR) Rankings

Exclusive Survey - Which Universities in Taiwan Come out on Top?

Exclusive Survey - Which Universities in Taiwan Come out on Top?

Source:Chien-Ying Chiu

The results of the inaugural CommonWealth University Citizen (USR) Rankings are out, with National Cheng Kung University, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, and Feng Chia University taking the top spots in the three categories of public, technical and private universities.

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Exclusive Survey - Which Universities in Taiwan Come out on Top?

By Hedy Chiu, Jimmy Hsiung
From CommonWealth Magazine (vol. 680 )

The results of the inaugural CommonWealth University Citizen (USR) Rankings are out, with National Cheng Kung University, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, and Feng Chia University taking the top spots in the three categories of public, technical and private universities. Let us take a look at how university rankings are affected once the evaluation criteria focus on university social responsibility rather than purely academic performance.

What is Your Impression of Universities?

In recent years, the CommonWealth Corporate Citizen (CSR) Awards have had an interesting effect. More and more universities have begun to compile corporate social responsibility reports and send them out without being asked to do so. They hope to use the ranking, the most influential CSR ranking in Taiwan, to monitor their own “social responsibility” standing. 

Internationally, universities are already being encouraged to integrate a social responsibility vision into their strategy. The United States and Canada began to promote university social responsibility in 2010. The European Union (EU) followed suit in 2012 with a university social responsibility framework known as EU-USR that obliges European universities to adopt transparent strategies and actions to exert a positive influence on society and the environment.

In 2017, Taiwan’s Ministry of Education launched the trial phase of its planned University Social Responsibility Projects (See explanation at end of article), which aims to encourage faculty and students to form transdisciplinary teams and act as think tanks in regional development. Meanwhile, 114 universities are participating in the USR Projects with 220 proposals.

                       

Comprehensive Monitoring of USR

CommonWealth Magazine modeled the USR Rankings after its longstanding CommonWealth Corporate Citizen Awards, which rank companies based on their performance in the four areas of corporate governance, corporate commitments, social participation and environmental protection. In the inaugural CommonWealth University Citizen (USR) Rankings, social responsibility was gauged based on three aspects.

University governance measures universities’ operational and administrative efficiency as well as their accountability systems; Teaching/learning environment emphasizes the interests of all stakeholders, including faculty and students; Social engagement looks at universities’ attention to disadvantaged groups and fairness and justice as well as the influence they exert on industry. A total of 153 domestic universities and colleges were monitored regarding their USR performance based on this framework. (Editor’s note: Not included in the survey were six religious studies institutes and two open universities. For survey details, see the explanations at the end of this article)

The survey is based on publicly available information. Data that match the three aspects highlighted in this survey and indicators corresponding to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) were gleaned from public Ministry of Education statistics. The universities were then awarded scores based on their respective performance and ranked in declining order.

As a result, the top-scoring universities in the three categories of public, private and technical universities were Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Feng Chia University (FCU) and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST).

National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (NTUST) has set an example by providing a diverse learning environment and offering numerous degree programs taught entirely in English. (Photo by Chien-Ying Chiu/CW)

Lin Yuan-huei, the former dean of the College of Communication at National Chengchi University (NCCU), is an outspoken critic of established university rankings such as the QS World University Rankings or the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, which place a strong emphasis on research and see little value in the humanities. Lin likens these rankings to “economic colonialism by the peddlers of Western academia.” He encourages universities to “be brave and follow your own path; don’t dance to the tune of the rankings.”

Therefore, our survey deliberately does not use academic criteria such as citations in academic journals counted in the Science Citation Index (SCI) or the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), but assesses whether universities are developing specific profiles from the perspective of USR. As a result, it will become much clearer whether they are “following their own paths.” 

How different are university rankings once “global ranking” criteria are disregarded in favor of “social responsibility” factors? And where exactly do the top-ranking universities differ from the also-rans? 

NCKU: Cultivating Diverse and Tolerant Talent

Let’s turn back the clock to May 6, when Ramadan, the month of fasting, prayer and reflection observed by Muslims worldwide, began this year. During the entire 30 days of the daytime fasting, the NCKU campus became sacred ground where more than 200 Muslim believers from the Greater Tainan area congregated to celebrate Ramadan.    

[On June 4] at 7:30 a.m. on Eid al-Fitr, when the festival that marks the end of Ramadan began, Muslim students, not only from NCKU but also from National University of Tainan, Far East University, and Chia Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, as well as Muslims working in Tainan all gathered on campus with friends and family to read the Koran, filling the university’s large prayer room, which can accommodate 300 people.

This year, Ramadan fell on the weeks right before final exams at the end of the summer semester. Therefore, the university provided prayer rooms of various sizes at five locations on campus, including the KnowLEDGE Learning Commons of the library as well as in dormitories to make it easier for Muslims to observe the five daily prayers. 

On the eve of Eid al-Fitr, NCKU provided the venue and facilities with NCKU President Huey-Jen Jenny Su personally checking the details on site, demonstrating that a university can play a role in leading society toward greater diversity and tolerance. (Source: NCKU)

One could also observe praying people walk around wearing wireless headphones that the university had distributed to 11 campuses so that non-Muslims would not be disturbed by prayer broadcasts.

“Most important for universities is to drive social progress and changes in thinking, to provide a tolerant, diverse and friendly environment and to cultivate citizens with the ability to get things done, with leadership qualities and a sense of responsibility,” notes Su. In the eyes of the president of the top-placed public university, the Ramadan events provided an exemplary opportunity to demonstrate social responsibility. 

NTUST: Acting as an Industrial R&D Center

With a surface area of 48 hectares, the NTUST campus is not even twice as big as the Da’an Forest Park. Right across from its main gate sits the nation’s most prestigious and much bigger university – National Taiwan University (NTU).

While sparrows may be small, they do not necessarily lose against bigger birds when it comes to snatching up food. Located on the NTUST campus are ten R&D centers that were established in collaboration with major corporations such as Cheng Uei Precision Industry Co. Ltd., Primax Electronics Ltd., International Games System Co. Ltd., the FSP Group, and Aaeon Technology Inc., which all inject funding worth at least NT$10 million per year. 

The university’s most enthusiastic sponsor is Aaeon Technology Inc. Chairman Y.S. Chuang, who graduated from NTUST. Ten years ago, Chuang donated NT$200 million to his alma mater, the biggest donation ever made to a technical university. Three years ago, his wife topped the donation up with another NT$100 million. And this May, NTUST signed a three-year R&D center collaboration project with Aaeon worth NT$30 million. 

What are the reasons behind Chuang’s financial largesse? Aside from a certain emotional attachment to his alma mater, Chuang is convinced of the university’s R&D prowess. “Given the fast development in AI (artificial intelligence) and the Internet, Aaeon as a hardware maker must obtain software skills, but cultivating so much software talent within a short time is quite a challenge. Therefore, we rely on the research ability of NTUST faculty and students,” he remarks.

“We founded the university to solve industry problems,” notes NTUST President Liao Ching-jong. The university definitely played a major role in helping Taiwan’s information technology and communications industry develop into the powerhouse it is today. “We are encouraging teachers to use technology in the industry and to take students with them when doing it. That way students are not newcomers anymore when they graduate and enter the workplace.”

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FCU: Innovative Teaching to Guarantee Employability

FCU, the frontrunner among the private universities, is making great efforts to create a teaching and learning environment that helps close the gap between academia and the workplace. FCU President Lee Bing-Jean points out that private universities need to be accountable to their stakeholders, namely students. Of course, they need to do their best to use all of the resources available for teaching. Thanks to longstanding talent cultivation, private universities play a crucial role in the transformation of society and the upgrading of industry.

Therefore, Lee has introduced project-based learning classes from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to teach students integrated specialist knowledge and practical skills. On the other hand, he takes the initiative in forging alliances with businesses such as with Merry Electronics Co. Ltd., Jabil Green Point and Taishin International Bank, creating different forms of cooperation ranging from setting up labs on campus to providing student internships and job opportunities.

App development became a compulsory course for first-year students three years ago. In 2017, Apple established its first Apple Regional Training Center at FCU, which underlines the university’s strength in bridging the gap between academia and industry. (Source: FCU)

University Governance: Operational and Administrative Efficiency

We will now take a look at the ranking of individual universities with regard to the aforementioned three major aspects. In terms of university governance, the Top Five among 153 universities island-wide are National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), NCKU, FCU, NTUST, and NTU.

As NTUST President Liao puts it: “University governance that lives up to its name means the ability to tap new sources of income and reduce expenditures, to allocate resources well and to make an effort to reserve resources for the students.”

NTUST Dean of General Affairs Wei Rong-Jong cites an example of budgetary ingenuity. A few years ago, Liao compiled a NT$23 milion budget to replace the air conditioning units throughout the school. When the upgrade had taken place, he found out that the Taipei City Government was subsidizing the replacement of every single old air conditioner with NT$2,500. Together with a fundraising campaign, this netted the school NT$43 million, which means the school was left with a sizable surplus.

“Since we originally did not plan on getting these funds, the president used them to set up a revolving fund within the school that is mainly used for various student subsidies,” explains Wai. Last year, for instance, NTUST money from the fund to subsidize tuition, living costs and airline tickets for around 200 students who went abroad as exchange students.

In comparison to other schools, NTUST is actually not spending that much on its students. With an expenditure of around NT$280,000 per student, it lags far behind NTU, which spends NT$570,000 per student and NCKU with NT$440,000. But thanks to Liao’s strategic planning, the university is still able to come out on top for university governance.

NTUST President Liao Ching-jong (Photo by Chien-Ying Chiu/CW)

For the external rating of university governance, the University President Peer Rating by Cheers magazine was used. Skilled university manager Liao has defended his top position for three years in a row. Last year, he garnered 31 votes from his peers across Taiwan, followed by FCU President Lee with 26 votes, National Tsing Hua University President Hocheng Hong with 18 votes, and NKCU’s Su with 16 votes. 

Teaching and Learning Environment: Globally Oriented Universities

The top performers regarding the teaching and learning environment were NTU, National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), NCKU, and NTUST. A major focus of data collection for this aspect was a school’s “internationalization”, including how many students have been sent abroad on exchange programs and how many international students have been enrolled in recent years.

In terms of dual degree programs signed with foreign universities, NCTU came out on top with 51 partnerships, followed by NTU with 48 and FCU with 47. Fourth- to sixth-placed NCCU, Ming Chuan University and NCKU all have more than 30 dual degree partnerships.

Since not every student has the financial means to study abroad, universities’ support mechanisms are very important. NCKU, for instance, sponsored 56 students over the past two year through its “Flying Geese Program“ for participation in short-term projects, symposiums, competitions or field studies abroad.

“Education must not abandon any child,” says Su. That’s why the school offers more than just exchange student programs. “We take advantage of the opportunity when professors go abroad to participate in symposiums and let them take students with them to broaden their horizons. I have also raised funds through special topic projects. After all, we want every kid to have the same opportunity to go abroad.”

Social Engagement: From Fairness and Justice to Sustainability

On the social engagement front, NCTU, NTHU, NCKU, NTU and National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU) were the frontrunners. 

For this category, the CommonWealth University Citizen (USR) Rankings adopted indicators that correspond to the UN Sustainable Development Goals such as gender equality, reduced inequality, sustainable cities and communities as well as peace, justice and strong institutions to encourage universities to drive progressive thinking and promote core functions needed for social development.

It deserves to be mentioned that, based on the spirit of information disclosure that underpins CSR, Taiwan’s universities have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to transparency. Private universities, for instance, do not normally announce information on how the board of directors operates, and do not even publicize information such as water and electricity use as well as CO2 emissions that would allow the assessment of environmental sustainability. 

Given the limited availability of meaningful indicators, it is difficult to create a quantitative framework for assessing the social engagement of universities. The inaugural CommonWealth University Citizen (USR) Rankings, nevertheless, makes a first attempt in a bid to raise awareness among the general public about the social responsibility of universities. Subsequently, it remains to be seen whether universities will continue to attach importance to their social responsibility and be able to exert greater influence on society so that they can play a crucial role in the progressive development of Taiwanese society.


About CommonWealth University Citizen (USR) Rankings

The 2019 CommonWealth University Citizen (USR) Rankings covers all universities and colleges in Taiwan. Schools are ranked based on a set of publicly available data under three main aspects - university governance, learning/teaching environment and social engagement. Taking the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals as references, the survey was composed from a total of 25 indicators that can be gleaned from publicly available Ministry of Education statistics and appropriately reflect Taiwan’s current situation. 

Of the 25 indicators, nine fall into the field of university governance, another nine reflect the teaching and learning environment, and seven were used to gauge social engagement. For each indicator, outlier values were first excluded from the original data set, and then the range between the smallest and biggest values was divided into five groups. The schools whose performance fell into the best group were given a score of five points, those in the second-best group were given a score of four points, and so on. The scores for all indicators per aspect were then summed up and divided by the number of indicators for the respective aspect to arrive at the scores for each aspect.

On top of this, external ratings were incorporated into the three aspects as bonus indicators. In the area of university governance, the University President Peer Rating by Cheers magazine was used. The survey, for which university presidents are asked to personally answer questionnaires regarding their peers’ performance in managing their respective schools during the current academic year, is widely cited and well regarded. The magazine’s annual survey on Employers’ Most Preferred University Graduates served to complement the social engagement picture.

For this survey, the human resources chiefs of Taiwan’s 2,000 largest enterprises are asked to pick the graduates who most fit employer requirements and whom they would most preferably hire. Its results serve as a key indicator to assess whether graduates can actually use what they learned in university to exert influence on society. Finally, the learning/teaching environment aspect was rounded off by outcomes from the Ministry of Education’s Campus Energy Management and Environment, Health and Safety Program, namely approved energy conservation facilities. The program aims to assist schools in improving such facilities, to strengthen awareness among faculty and students about environmental protection, health and safety, and to establish a complete system to manage such issues. 

The bonus points were calculated by dividing the range for the two first bonus categories between the smallest and biggest values into three groups, with the best performing schools gaining three points, the second-best obtaining two points and so on. In the third bonus category one point was awarded to any school that had gained approval from the Ministry of Education for energy-conservation facilities.

Each university’s final score was arrived at by taking the average of its three subscores. Then the Top Five universities were listed in the categories of public, private and technical universities.

Survey executed by: Jimmy Hsiung, Hedy Chiu, Shih-ting Wu


How Does the Ministry of Education Run its USR Program?

In contrast to the CommonWealth University Citizen (USR) Rankings, the Ministry of Education’s USR Program, which was launched for a test run in 2017, focuses on the aspect of social engagement. It aims to entice teachers and students to form interdisciplinary teams and play a key role as local think tanks in regional development by determining local needs and then solving problems by dividing tasks among specialists. It is hoped that this approach will translate into innovative developments in local companies and community culture. So far, 116 universities have submitted 220 proposals. Around 90 percent of these universities offer incentives for teachers who promote the USR, such as a reduction of teaching hours, multi-track promotion systems and merit pay systems. Forty percent have already set up schoolwide offices or organizations that are exclusively responsible for the vertical and horizontal integration and planning of USR.

Forty percent of the universities have established USR courses and programs. National Pingtung University offers a Rock’n Roll Social Forces community care program that encourages teachers and students to collaborate with local people working in the field in addressing the problems that communities face in an ageing society.

National Central University, Yuan Ze University and Chung Yuan Christian University, all of which are based on Taoyuan City, are jointly offering a Taoyuan Studies program that used the city’s coastal communities for practical implementation. Students will use monitoring of the coastal environment and conservation activities to popularize the concepts of “ecology, life, and production” and create low-impact environmental education and tourism events. 

NCKU Professor Kuo Yau-hwang, project director for the Ministry of Education’s USR Program, is a key campaigner for university social responsibility in Taiwan.

“This not only encourages teachers and students to leave their academic ivory towers and use their specialist knowledge to solve problems, it also trains students in transdisciplinary collaboration and bridges the gap between learning and practice,” notes NCKU Professor Kuo Yau-hwang, who doubles as project director for the Ministry of Education’s USR Program.

Kuo explains that the ministry’s foremost goal in promoting USR is to initiate dialogue - between the public and private sectors, the central and local governments, universities and local communities –and to encourage schools to develop their own brand of university social responsibility.

Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by TC Lin, Sharon Tseng

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