BACKGROUND
Spinning off from Department of Political Science, Department of Public Administration (DPA) was established in 1963. The DPA is the first public-administration specialized university department in Taiwan. It now offers bachelor’s, master’s and PhD degree programs. Over 300 students are now enrolled in the three programs.
The DPA is the cradle and hub of public administration teaching and research in Taiwan. All faculty members are PhD degree holders and earned their PhDs overseas, including from the United States, Australia and Germany. Many high-level government officials graduated from the DPA. The PhD program has also cultivated numerous outstanding scholars now working across tertiary education institutes in Taiwan. The research of the DPA has significant impacts on public policy making. Our faculty members were sometimes seconded to government administration as top-level officials.
TEACHING
In order to respond to fast-changing society and the demand of establishing democratic governance in Taiwan, the DPA not only focuses on teaching traditional public administration and policy theories and issues, but also develops the state-of-the-art courses to equip students with updated knowledge and skills, including e-governance, deliberative democracy for policy making, environmental governance, disaster management, the third sector management, and the application of GIS to public governance.
Bachelor’s degree program is aimed to develop all-around competences in public administration and policy for future career in the public and non-profit sector. The advanced degree programs (Master’s and PhD) develops research ability to address various government and public issues. The PhD program further fosters scholarship for career development in the academic field.
RESEARCH
All faculty members of the DPA are active researchers. They frequently secure research grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology that amounted to up to US$1,000,000 in the period from 2016-2018. In addition, various government-commissioned research projects, mainly Examination Yuan and National Development Council, are always granted to our faculty to embark upon policy-related studies and offer policy advice.
Research outputs of our faculty are published in various local and international public administration journals, for the latter including Public Management Review, Review of Public Personnel Administration, Public Performance and Management Review, Administration & Society, Public Administration, Public Personnel Management, Australian Journal of Public Administration, and Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration.
Six research teams or centers are formed in collaboration with scholars outside the DPA to focus on certain specific fields: 1) Taiwan’s E-governance Research Center (commissioned by National Development Council); 2) Taiwan Government Bureaucrat Survey; 3) Deliberative Democracy Research Team; 4) Center for Civil Society and Local Governance; 5) Center for Democratic Innovation and Governance; 6) Ecosystem for Public Affairs Cases and Centers.
SERVICE
The DPA keeps good connections with central and local governments. Apart from policy research, the DPA has offered various consultative services to government agencies or government-affiliated institutes, especially for helping developing new skills of public governance. For instance, we help establish a mechanism of participatory budgeting for grassroots level governments.
