National Taiwan University

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" (Japanese: 台北帝国大学, romanized: Taihoku Teikoku Daigaku; Chinese: 臺北帝國大學; pinyin: Táiběi dìguó dàxué), 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 Taira Shidehara (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 114.72 hectares (283.5 acres) 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.

Satellite campuses and facilities

In addition to its main campus, NTU maintains academic, medical, agricultural, and research properties throughout Taiwan; in 2024, university land holdings totaled 34,150.50 hectares (341.5 km2; 84,387.7 acres), the majority of which consisted of the Experimental Forest in central Taiwan. Within Taipei, the university has the main campus, the Shuiyuan Campus, and a downtown campus centered on its medical and public-health institutions.

The downtown campus in Zhongzheng District includes the College of Public Health on Xuzhou Road, the College of Medicine on Ren'ai Road, and National Taiwan University Hospital on Zhongshan South Road. In 2024, these properties occupied 4.75 hectares (11.7 acres), 9.81 hectares (24.2 acres), and 19.41 hectares (48.0 acres), respectively. The medical campus predates the university itself: a building completed in 1907 for the Japanese colonial-era medical school survives as the university's Museum of Medical Humanities.

The 6.78 hectares (16.8 acres) Shuiyuan Campus is located on Siyuan Street in Taipei's Zhongzheng District, immediately west of the main campus area. University facilities there include the NTU Archives and facilities associated with the university's innovation and incubation programs.

Outside Taipei, NTU operates campuses in Zhubei, Hsinchu County, and Huwei, Yunlin County. The 22.08 hectares (54.6 acres) Zhubei Campus was formally activated in 2024 as a center for technological research, entrepreneurship, and university–industry collaboration, with programs concentrating on semiconductors, quantum technology, artificial intelligence, smart healthcare, and carbon reduction. Its location places it near both the Hsinchu Science Park and Hsinchu Biomedical Park. The 57.03 hectares (140.9 acres) Yunlin Campus includes the Agricultural Incubation and Promotion Center, which was established to support advanced agricultural technology, education and training, and university–industry collaboration.

The university's largest properties are devoted to agricultural, forestry, and environmental research. Its Experimental Forest in Nantou County encompassed 32,790.83 hectares (327.9 km2; 81,027.9 acres) in 2024, making it the largest component of NTU's land holdings. NTU also maintains the 1,081.16 hectares (2,671.6 acres) Highland Experimental Farm in Ren'ai Township, the 20.53 hectares (50.7 acres) Ankang Experimental Farm in Xindian, and the 5.03 hectares (12.4 acres) Wenshan Botanical Garden. Other university properties include a campus in Yilan County, which occupied 3.03 hectares (7.5 acres) in 2024, together with additional dormitory and research lands.

Academics

The university is organized into 17 college-level units: the colleges of Liberal Arts, Science, Social Sciences, Medicine, Engineering, Bio-Resources and Agriculture, Management, Public Health, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Law, and Life Science; the School of Political Science and Economics; the International College; the College of Design and Innovation; the Graduate School of Advanced Technology; the Center for General Education; and the School of Professional Education and Continuing Studies. Across these units, the university has 61 departments and 152 graduate institutes and offers as many as 8,000 courses each semester. The regular academic year is divided into two semesters. In 2024, NTU enrolled 34,483 students, including 17,432 undergraduates, 13,272 master's students, and 3,779 doctoral students. Most students at the university come from wealthy families with higher socioeconomic status.

Undergraduate education

NTU enrolled 17,432 undergraduate students in 2024, accounting for slightly more than half of its student body. Undergraduate education is organized principally through academic departments within the university's colleges, supplemented by university-wide general education and interdisciplinary programs. The university's published general-education requirements for students admitted since 2016 call for at least three credits of Chinese literature, six credits of foreign-language study, and 15 credits of liberal-education courses.

In 2025, NTU introduced a revised curriculum known as General Education 5.0, retaining an eight-area structure while emphasizing interdisciplinary study, contemporary issues, sustainability, reflection, and collaborative learning. Its eight areas are Literature and Arts, Historical Thinking, World Civilization and Globalization, Philosophy and Moral Thinking, Citizenship and Social Analysis, Mathematics and Computer Science, Physical Science, and Life Science. The 2025 revision renamed the former World Civilization area to World Civilization and Globalization and replaced Mathematics, Digital Competence, and Quantitative Analysis with Mathematics and Computer Science.

NTU has also established academic units specifically for interdisciplinary undergraduate study. The College of Design and Innovation, established in 2015 and commonly called the D-School, administers a trans-disciplinary bachelor's degree as well as programs in leadership and creativity and entrepreneurship. The International College, established in 2021, offers the Global Undergraduate Program in Semiconductors alongside interdisciplinary graduate programs in agriculture and genomics, biodiversity, smart medicine and health informatics, and disaster-risk reduction and resilience.

Graduate and professional education

Graduate students constitute a large proportion of the university: in 2024, NTU enrolled 13,272 master's students and 3,779 doctoral students, compared with 17,432 undergraduates. The university reported 152 graduate institutes, including 32 integrated master's and doctoral programs, and three professional schools in dentistry, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine. The schools of Dentistry and Pharmacy are administered through the College of Medicine, while the School of Veterinary Medicine is part of the College of Bio-Resources and Agriculture.

Several newer academic units concentrate on interdisciplinary or professional graduate education. The Graduate School of Advanced Technology, established in 2021, offers programs in integrated-circuit design and automation, semiconductor devices and materials, nanoengineering and nanoscience, and precision health and intelligent medicine. The School of Political Science and Economics, established in 2024, offers master's programs in political economy and finance and a professional master's program in leadership and management. The School of Professional Education and Continuing Studies, founded in 1987, administers professional master's programs in business administration, business law, and biotechnology management in addition to continuing-education and professional-training programs.

NTU also participates in several graduate programs conducted in cooperation with Academia Sinica, including Taiwan International Graduate Program tracks in Earth System Science, Sustainable Chemical Science and Technology, and Interdisciplinary Neuroscience. Other interdisciplinary graduate programs span fields such as climate change and sustainable development, translational medicine, molecular science and technology, genomic and systems biology, and plant biotechnology.

Research

Research at NTU is conducted through departments and graduate institutes as well as a network of university-level, national-level, and international research centers. National-level facilities based at or associated with the university include the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering, the Research Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences of the National Science and Technology Council, the National Center for Theoretical Sciences, and research centers for artificial intelligence and health care, sustainability, and infectious diseases. University-level centers conduct research in areas including condensed-matter physics, biotechnology, biodiversity, genomics and precision medicine, digital humanities, quantum science, econometrics, developmental biology, oceanography, artificial intelligence and robotics, financial technology, and the humanities and social sciences.

The university also maintains research collaborations with major technology companies; university-level facilities include the TSMC–NTU Joint Research Center, the MediaTek–NTU Research Center, and the NVIDIA–NTU Artificial Intelligence Joint Research Center. In September 2025, NTU, the Max Planck Society, and the Institute for Advanced Study formally inaugurated the Max Planck–IAS–NTU Center for Particle Physics, Cosmology and Geometry, an international research center on campus combining work in mathematics, particle physics, and cosmology.

The university's teaching and research infrastructure extends beyond its departments and laboratories: the College of Medicine is affiliated with National Taiwan University Hospital, while the College of Bio-Resources and Agriculture operates facilities including a veterinary hospital, experimental farm, phytotron, and the Xitou and Highland experimental farms and forests.

Associated academic institutions and resources

The university is a member of the National Taiwan University System with National Taiwan Normal University and the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology. Under the system's academic regulations, undergraduate students may apply to pursue an intercollegiate double major or minor at one of the other member universities, allowing study in departments not offered by their home institution. The university is also a member of the Association of Pacific Rim Universities, the Association of East Asian Research Universities, the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, and the European Union Centre in Taiwan. It has partnerships with several American universities, including Washington University in St. Louis, which, since 2012, has funded NTU students to complete doctoral degrees at the university. In 2024, NTU and the University of Texas at Arlington began a partnership to host a dual master's degree program in architecture between the two universities.

The university's International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) was established in 1962 for students from Stanford University and subsequently expanded into the Inter-University Program for Chinese Language Studies. NTU assumed full administration of the program in 1997, when it adopted its present name, and the institute provides intensive instruction in modern and classical Chinese to international students.

The National Taiwan University Library system holds more than 2.4 million volumes, about 24,000 periodicals, and more than 50,000 rare books. Its special collections include the Tan-Hsin judicial archives, Ming-dynasty stitched-binding books, the Rekidai Hōan diplomatic archive of the Ryukyu Kingdom, European incunabula, and materials relating to Taiwanese history, Southeast Asia, and Taiwan under Japanese rule.

National Taiwan University Press was established in 1996 as the university's academic publishing house. It publishes scholarly monographs, textbooks, and general-interest works and subjects its academic books to independent anonymous peer review.

University rankings

Overall rankings

National Taiwan University is widely considered to be the best university in Taiwan. Most high school applicants generally consider NTU to be their most preferred choice for college.

NTU was ranked 63rd worldwide in the QS World University Rankings 2026, 140th worldwide in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026, 203rd worldwide in the US News 2022-2023, and 201-300th worldwide in the ARWU 2022.

The Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities (ARTU), which sorts universities based on their aggregate performance across THE, QS, and ARWU, ranked NTU 135th worldwide in 2022.

Subject rankings

In the QS and ARWU subject rankings, NTU is ranked first in Taiwan in the majority of subjects. In the THE Subject Rankings, NTU is ranked first in Taiwan in all subjects.

List of presidents

The president heads the university. Each college is headed by a dean and each department by a chairman. Students elect their own representatives each year to attend administrative meetings.

National Taiwan University

Chen Wen-chang: 8 January 2023 – present

Kuan Chung-ming: 8 January 2019 – 7 January 2023

Tei-Wei Kuo (interim): October 2017 – January 2019

Yang Pan-chyr: June 2013 – June 2017

Lee Si-chen: August 2005 – June 2013

Chen Wei-jao: 22 June 1993 – June 2005

Kuo Kuang-hsiung: March 1993 – June 1993

Sun Chen: August 1984 – February 1993

Yu Chao-chung: August 1981 – July 1984

Yen Cheng-hsing: June 1970 – July 1981

Chien Szu-liang: January 1951 – May 1970

Shen Kang-po: December 1950 – January 1951

Fu Szu-nien: January 1949 – December 1950

Chuang Chang-kung: June 1948 – December 1948

Lu Chih-houng: August 1946 – May 1948

Lo Tsung-lo: August 1945 – July 1946

Taihoku Imperial University

Kazuo Ando (安藤一雄): March 1945 – August 1945

Masatsugu Ando: April 1941 – March 1945

Sadanori Mita: September 1937 – April 1941

Taira Shidehara: March 1928 – September 1937

Notable alumni

National Taiwan University has produced notable alumni in politics, business, academia, science, medicine, and numerous other fields. Graduates of the university disproportionately comprise a majority of the political and business elite in Taiwan. As of 2024, about half (48.7%) of all academicians of Academia Sinica are NTU graduates and 70 percent of all Taiwanese members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) are. 25 graduates of NTU are members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

Five of the eight presidents of the Republic of China are graduates of the university: Lai Ching-te, the current president of Taiwan; Tsai Ing-Wen, the first woman to be elected to the position; Ma Ying-jeou; Chen Shui-bian, the first member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to hold the office; and Lee Teng-hui, the first native-born Taiwanese to become president. In addition, six out of the 13 vice-presidents of the Republic of China have graduated from NTU, including Lee Teng-hui, Lien Chan, Annette Lu, Wu Den-yih, Chen Chien-jen, and Lai Ching-te. The heads of major political parties—such as Eric Chu and Cheng Li-wun, chairs of the Kuomintang; Ko Wen-je, former mayor of Taipei and founder of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP); and Huang Kuo-chang, chairman of the TPP—also graduated from NTU.

In science, graduates include Yuan T. Lee, who received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of reaction dynamics, and Andrew Yao, who was awarded the Turing Award in 2000 for his contributions to cryptography and computation. Other scientific achievements by alumni include contributions to chemical synthesis by chemist Chi-Huey Wong, winner of the 2014 Wolf Prize in Chemistry, and contributions to biosynthesis by botanist Shang Fa Yang, winner of the 1991 Wolf Prize in Agriculture. Alumnus Chenming Hu was awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor in 2020; Simon Sze the J. J. Ebers Award in 1991; and George Kuo the 1994 William Beaumont Prize for the discovery of the Hepatitis C virus. Notable mathematicians who graduated from NTU include Fan Chung, the Paul Erdős Professor in Combinatorics at the University of California, San Diego; Wu-Chung Hsiang, topologist and professor at Princeton University; and Horng-Tzer Yau, Merton Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University.

In academia, alumni include two chancellors of American universities: Chang-Lin Tien, chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, and Henry T. Yang, chancellor of the University of California, Santa Barbara. Other academic administrators include Ambrose King, vice-chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and Vincent Chang, vice-chancellor of BRAC University. Academicians of Academia Sinica include political scientist Chu Yun-han; economists Hu Sheng-cheng, Cyrus Chu, Cheng Hsiao, Yu Tzong-shian, Mai Chao-cheng, and George C. Tiao; and legal scholars Hu Fo and Hungdah Chiu.