The German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) 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 and was successfully completed in January 2026. The project directors were Hsu Yu-Yin 徐郁縈, Ph.D. (December 2022 to January 2026) and Associate Professor Chien Hung-yi 簡宏逸 Ph.D. (February to July 2022).
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.
The sub-project "Education as a motor of modernity in Taiwan" (Erziehung als Motor der Moderne in Taiwan) at the Ruhr University Bochum explores the historical perspectives of education and educational policy. Dr. Hsu Yu-Yin'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.
For published articles by Dr. Hsu, please see TAP Team.
Before Dr. Hsu took over the direction, Dr. Chien Hung-yi led the Bochum section of TAP designing the fundamental idea of its sub-project. During her time at TAP she studied the modern education system in Taiwan and its contribution to the island nation’s modernization, focusing on Taiwan's of Taiwan's first language teaching and teacher training institute, the predecessor of today’s National Taipei University of Education (NTUE).
Although Dr. Chien has left the project in July 2022 to take up a tenure-track position at the History Department of the National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, she has continued her research and cooperation with Bochum. This ultimately led to the establishment of the new project "Broadening the Horizon for Taiwan Studies through Visualization: The Photography Database of the National Taipei University of Education" funded by the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation (CCKF). For more information on the project please click here.
For published articles by Dr. Chien, please see TAP Team.
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Last update: Jul 26, 2026
