MOE extends partnership with University of Zurich

• By Jonathan Chin / Staff writer

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The Ministry of Education (MOE) and the University of Zurich (UZH) have renewed the Taiwan Studies Project, extending the academic partnership over the next five years, the Taiwan Representative Office to Switzerland said.

The new agreement, covering this year to 2031, was signed in Zurich on Wednesday in the latest addition to years of cooperation between the ministry and the UZH’s Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies, the office said in a statement.

“The renewal of the Taiwan Studies Project means that the academic partnership between Taiwan and UZH will now continue into its second decade, providing a sustained institutional framework for Taiwan-related teaching, research and academic exchange in Switzerland,” it said.

University of Zurich professor Bettina Dennerlein, left, and Representative to Switzerland Wang Szu-wei are pictured at an event marking their continued collaboration on the school’s Taiwan Studies Project at the University in Zurich on Wednesday.

Photo courtesy of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Switzerland

The UZH and the MOE jointly launched the Taiwan Studies Project in 2017, with the latter providing funding in an initial two-year agreement, the office said.

Since then, the program has been renewed three times, with the latest five-year renewal activated retroactively on Sept. 1, it said.

Under the leadership of program director Simona Grano, who is also head of UZH Research Area China-Taiwan Relations, the Taiwan Studies supports research and scholarly exchange on Taiwan and its international environment, the office said.

Grano and Lee Chun-yi, associate professor of politics and international relations at the UK-based University of Nottingham, coedited Changing Dynamics in Geopolitics: Implications for Taiwan, published by Palgrave Macmillan last year, it said.

The volume incorporated works on Taiwan’s changing geopolitical environment and its ramifications for the intensifying US-China competition by academics hailing from Europe, the UK, the US and Asia-Pacific countries.

The Department of International and Cross-Strait Education is tasked with handling the Taiwan side of the renewed agreement, as part of its mission to support international scholarly exchanges and promote Taiwan studies programs abroad.

In related news, the UZH Research Area China-Taiwan Relations is to hold a talk on narratives surrounding Hong Kong’s sovereignty transfer in Taiwanese and Chinese-language media, the university said.

The event featuring Lutgard Lams, professor of media discourse analysis at KU Leuven’s Brussels campus, is part of the Zurich Taiwan Lecture Series and would take place at the UZH on Oct. 21, the office said.