National Central University

National Central University was founded in Nanjing, China in 1915. It moved to Zhongli, Taiwan in 1968, following the establishment of the Graduate Institute of Geophysics in the Miaoli county of Taiwan in 1962.

The institution has eight colleges: liberal arts, science, engineering, management, electrical engineering and computer science, earth sciences, Hakka Studies, and health science and technology.

As part of the second phase of the country’s Aim for the Top University Project, the university has focused its research on four main areas: environment and energy, complex systems and plasma sciences, optics and opto-electronics, and applied informatics. There are also three libraries and several research centres at the institution.

The university has international partnerships with around 180 institutions across North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australasia; this is mainly focused on student exchanges and double degree programmes.

The university’s Chinese language programme, designed to teach foreign students the Chinese language and to help deepen their understanding of Chinese culture, was launched in 2001.

National Central University is a member of the University System of Taiwan, which means that it shares resources with National Tsing Hua University and National Chiao Tung University, both in Hsinchu City, and National Yang-Ming University in the Beitou District of Taipei.

The university’s motto is: sincerity and simplicity. Its vision is to become one of the world’s top universities with deep humanistic concerns.

The Zhongli District, which is in the Taoyuan City, to the west of Taipei, has three large parks and an industrial centre that houses around 480 companies.