Younger academics are now eligible to apply for the Yushan Scholar program and schools are to be given greater leeway in deciding which applications to approve, the Ministry of Education said on Tuesday.
The program, which is scheduled to begin next year with annual funding of NT$1.5 billion (US$49.7 million), is aimed at providing more competitive wages to retain domestic and attract foreign talent.
It is to give academics NT$5 million on top of their base pay, capping out at a total of NT$6.5 million per year.
Younger academics — defined as individuals who apply for the program within a decade after receiving their highest degree — are eligible to apply for NT$1.5 million to NT$3 million on top of their base pay, the ministry said.
All talented youths working for renowned corporations, domestic and foreign, are eligible to apply for the program, it added.
Of the overall budget, 20 percent has been earmarked for top-ranking universities, which are to have full discretion on distribution of the funds, Deputy Minister of Education Yao Leeh-ter (姚立德) said, adding that the remaining funds are to be made available to all schools nationwide.
The program is to be available to renowned international academics, regardless of whether they are in private or national universities, Yao said, adding that the ministry defines “foreign academics” as individuals who have a competitive edge, not just academics teaching at foreign universities or institutes.
Universities are to decide on the ratio of senior and younger academics who receive the funds, allowing for greater flexibility when selecting talent, he said.
One senior Yushan Scholar could be considered the equivalent of three younger academics, the deputy minister said.
The ministry’s talent retention plan is also to undergo changes, Yao said, adding that a flexible salary system is to be increased to more than NT$30,000.
About 70 percent of institutions in the “Prestigious Universities” program have capped flexible salaries at NT$20,000, accounting for only 5.9 percent of their funding, he said.
The cost of increasing the flexible salary cap is to be shared by universities and the ministry, he added.
To guarantee the rights of younger academics, universities would have to list the ratio of flexible salaries offered to associate professors and below for review, Yao said.
National Tsing Hua University dean Hocheng Hong (賀陳弘) voiced support for the ministry’s decision, saying that universities know best how to attract and retain talent and that they tend to attract younger academics.
However, Taiwan Higher Education Union secretary-general Chen Cheng-liang (陳政亮) said that it would be more practical to instead increase the amount of full-time educators.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift