Virtual Information Seminar on the Yushan Young Fellow Program
The Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Boston (TECO-Boston) and the Boston Taiwanese Biotechnology Association hosted a virtual information seminar about the Yushan Young Fellow Program on December 13, 2023 at 8:00 pm. The seminar was very informative for the more than 130 participants.
In her opening remarks, Dr. Nicole Lee, the Director General of the Ministry of Education’s Department of International and Cross-strait Education (DICE), encouraged overseas scholars in the virtual audience to return to Taiwan and contribute their talents. She pointed out that the academic environment in Taiwan has changed tremendously in recent years. The changes include a gradual expansion from universiy-to-universiy promotion of internationalization to government-to-government promotion of internationalization, the setting up of systematic academic alliances, and the strengthening of industry-academia cooperation to realize the goal of training highly skilled workers for industry.
Chou Hongwei, a Specialist in the Ministry of Education’s Department of Higher Education, then gave a detailed presentation on the Yushan Young Fellow Program and its regulations. This is a program designed to attract outstanding young scholars from anywhere in the world to Taiwan to deploy their talents in universities there.
Three former Yushan Young Fellows— Dr. Chen Ping-Min, Dr. Kuo Wei-Ting, and Dr. Mai Te-Lun, all now assistant professors at National Taiwan University—spoke about their related experiences from different perspectives. Their contributions were substantial, lasting for more than two hours, and inspired great interest from the audience. Dr. Chen, now in the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at National Taiwan University, analyzed the pros and cons of career development in the United States and Taiwan, something with which he is quite familiar. He pointed out that many programs in Taiwan offer subsidies for young people and said that in his opinion there are approximately ten people in the Boston Taiwanese Biotechnology Association who are eligible to apply for funding support. He believes that instead of working alone overseas, young scholars should team up and return to Taiwan for strategic career development.
Dr. Tsai Mingru and Dr. Wu Peirong, co-presidents of the Boston Taiwanese Biotechnology Association, said that in recent years, many people have been considering returning to Taiwan for their career development and so the information provided by the seminar is invaluable for many people. We certainly hope that more overseas scholars from Taiwan will return to Taiwan and contribute their talents there.
