The TSE Foundation was founded by Mr. Huang Huang-hsiung in November 2019 with the sole mission of joining forces with NTHU to launch the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science (TSE). Mr. Huang Huang-hsiung is one of the most respected former politicians emerging from Taiwan’s democratic transition. He founded the Taiwan Research Foundation more than thirty years ago, which has become known as an influential independent think tank charting the course of Taiwan’s constitutional restructuring, the deepening of democratic reform, and major policy reformulation across a wide range of policy domains including national defense, universal health insurance, and transitional justice.
The TSE Foundation is endowed with $100 million USD ($3 billion NTD) which came from a generous donation by Mr. Lin Chen Hai, Founder and Chairman of Pau Jar Group, Taiwan’s largest real-estate developer. The TSEF will appropriate the dividends and investment returns of its endowment in the form of a block grant and project-specific grants to the School annually to enhance its financial position and research resources.
In addition to Mr. Lin Chen Hai’s more than generous financial support, TSEF has also amassed tremendous social resources and made them readily available to TSE. First of all, besides internationally known scholars, TSEF’s board members also include several Taiwan’s former ministers in both the fields of education and economic planning and top business leaders. They can not only contribute their previous experiences in government policy-making and public affairs or steering large-scale firms, but also bring a variety of external resources to TSE. This is also what makes TSE so distinctive, since it enjoys a wide array of support from the Taiwan’s public sector, private sector and the civil society at large. Second, the solid support from TSEF will also allow TSE’s graduates to receive much more practical training than the students in similar programs. Third, financially, the support from TSEF will also help TSE overcome many hurdles in Taiwan’s existing policy regime of higher education.
All the features listed above are unprecedented in Taiwan’s history of higher education. They collectively constitute a web of support for both of our faculty members and students. TSE’s faculty members will enjoy the stimulating academic environment where the teaching load will be reasonable and ample research funding will also be available for exploring new frontiers of knowledge in social sciences and humanities. In addition, our students will benefit from an environment where they will be rewarded with opportunities to implement what they learn in classes.
For more information about TSEF, visit the TSEF website at https://tse.org.tw/.