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NTU to offer higher pay to attract teachers

To promote National Taiwan University's (NTU) efforts to become a top international institution, a university affairs meeting on Saturday passed new regulations for higher pay for new teachers and researchers.

Beginning next academic year at the earliest, newly employed teachers and researchers with high standards and good potential could receive additional monthly pay.

No upper limit is set for the additional sum, a measure that turns the current system of equal salaries for teachers on its head and that could lure away teachers from other schools.

University president Lee Su-chen (李嗣岑) said the basic monthly salary plus bonuses for professors varies between NT$120,000 (US$3,750) and NT$140,000. In other words, the annual salary plus a two-month bonus would be less than NT$2 million.

Lee said that the NTU's goal is to offer salaries similar to top international institutions like Berkeley or Stanford, universities in the US where outstanding young academics may be paid between US$100,000 and US$200,000 per year.

Lee said that the reason for this plan is to add young outstanding academics with great potential to the NTU research and teaching staff to quickly improve the university's academic research record.

Chiang Been-Huang (蔣炳煌), dean of the university's Academic Affairs Division, said the new regulations could be applied toward hiring assistant professors, and will help the school hire talented personnel, perhaps in situations when several institutions want to hire the same individual.

It would give NTU a better chance of preventing top academics from moving to more lucrative positions in places like Hong Kong or Singapore, Chiang said.

Regulations passed by the university a year ago capped monthly salary bonuses at NT$50,000 for a maximum of three years. In addition, salary increases were terminated if the individual was given a chair professorship.

The limited effect of that measure prompted the university to amend the regulations on Saturday, striking the cap and time limit for salary increases.

NTU regulations stipulate that salary increases must be accompanied by substantive academic contributions reviewed and approved by a task force at the relevant institution and approved by the school's president.

Lee said that the salary increases would not come from the university budget, but from five different funds belonging to each department: between 15 percent and 20 percent of the management fees for research programs, income from rent for subletting facilities, donations, fund interest, and income from educational promotions.

To offer salary increases to newly hired academics, departments will therefore need to obtain substantial funds.

In Lee's estimate, NTU's colleges of management, science, electrical engineering and computer science, and medicine are already in a position to offer such salary increases.

Other universities around the country are considering similar measures.
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