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Cooperative Research Project Taiwan als Pionier (TAP)

The German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has awarded a grant to four post-doc researchers to conduct the joint research program TAP (Taiwan as a Pioneer) for a duration of four years.

Bochum is one of the participating centers for Taiwan studies in Germany, next to Trier and Tübingen. It started on 1 February 2022. In Bochum, Hsu Yu-Yin 徐郁縈, Ph. D., is directing the subproject "Education as a motor of modernity in Taiwan" since 1 December 2022.

Outline of the Program TAP

Taiwan is a political and social pioneer. Recently, this has become evident in successfully handling the COVID-19 pandemic or Taiwan's inclusive language policies. Yet to date, the historical, cultural, and sociopolitical reasons for Taiwan's role as a trailblazer have not been studied in depth. Broad-based social and political participation is one of the salient features of the coping strategies for dealing with global challenges.

The joint research program TAP (Taiwan as a Pioneer) pursues the question of which institutional frameworks, conditions, and social actors have made it possible for Taiwan to assume such a pioneering role. The program is being designed and implemented by post-doctoral researchers from political science, sociology, literature, and history.

TAP at Bochum: Dr. Hsu Yu-Yin's Research on Taiwan's Educational History

The sub-project at the Ruhr University Bochum explores the historical perspectives of education and educational policy. Dr. Hsu's project will be devoted to education, public education, and vocational training as the engine of modernity. Her case studies will be the function of the press and media and specifically medical education in the colonial period and the period of the Republic of China until about 1990.

The main target of this project is to explore innovative actions and changes in Taiwan during the last century in the technological and vocational training and education system during the modernizing process of Taiwan through profound observations of the development of printing industries and medical revolutions.