Chapter 15
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Challenges and Opportunities of the Chemistry Community in Taiwan After the Recent Economic Crisis Chien-Hong Cheng* President (2011-2012), Chemical Society in Taipei Department of Chemistry, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, ROC-30013 *E-mail:
[email protected] What are the challenges and opportunities for the chemistry community in Taiwan? The oil price and the raw materials hit record high as the global climate is heating up. The situation is predicted to get worse as the time goes on. Unfortunately, we need to import every drop of the oil and all the raw materials from other countries to Taiwan; we simply do not have the resources except sunlight and water. How can we survive in a comfortable way under this situation? In this article, I will discuss our reactions in Taiwan to the global changes in terms of chemical education, chemical research, chemical industry and government policies. In addition, I will try to provide solutions to the challenges.
© 2014 American Chemical Society Cheng et al.; Vision 2025: How To Succeed in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.
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At the ACS Presidential Symposium (“Vision 2025: How to Succeed in the Global Chemistry Enterprise”) in New Orleans, the author discussed the challenges and opportunities of the chemistry community in Taiwan after the recent global economic crisis. An overview of the scope and strengths of the chemistry community in Taiwan may be necessary to understand the context of which the challenges and opportunities arise. Taiwan is host to the Chemical Society Located in Taipei, otherwise known as CSLT. The CSLT has approximately 2500 individual members and approximately 60 organizational members. There are 25 chemistry departments in universities across Taiwan at the time of the 2013 ACS meeting. There are also approximately 5 chemistry related institutions responsible for chemistry education and research. The major universities and research institutions include at least National Taiwan University, National Tsing Hua University, National Chiao Tung University, National Cheng Kung University, Academia Sinica, Industrial Technology Research Institute, and many other public (e.g., NTNU, NCU, NCHU, NCCU, NSYU, NDHU and private institutions). One potential for opportunity is the number of incoming chemistry students in Taiwan’s universities, thus providing a powerful intellectual workforce. For example, in Table 1 the numbers of incoming chemistry students in Taiwan’s universities are shown between the period of 2005 and 2011.
Table 1. The numbers of incoming chemistry students in Taiwan’s universities between the period of 2005 and 2011(a). (Source: the Chemical Society Located in Taipei)
(a)
Year
Undergraduate
Master
Doctorate
2005
1567 (1067/500)
899 (635/264)
206 (166/40)
2006
1740 (1128/612)
963 (683/280)
197 (155/42)
2007
1798 (1256/542)
966 (646/320)
208 (162/46)
2008
1753 (1145/608)
1003 (648/355)
184 (143/41)
2009
1725 (1086/639)
987 (639/348)
208 (151/57)
2010
1907 (1241/666)
1016 (679/337)
188 (142/46)
2011
1715 (1101/614)
1040 (704/336)
153 (112/41)
The numbers are denoted as total (male/female students).
160 Cheng et al.; Vision 2025: How To Succeed in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.
Comparatively, the number of graduating chemistry students in Taiwan’s universities are shown in Table 2.
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Table 2. The numbers of graduating chemistry students in Taiwan’s universities are shown between the period of 2005 and 2010(a). (Source: the Chemical Society Located in Taipei)
(a)
Year
Undergraduate
Master
Doctorate
2005
1393 (989/404)
740 (494/246)
136 (118/18)
2006
1364 (897/467)
811 (576/235)
124 (104/20)
2007
1475 (952/523)
800 (556/244)
149 (123/26)
2008
1502 (970/532)
853 (569/284)
130 (108/22)
2009
1718 (1119/599)
859 (562/297)
155 (128/27)
2010
1587 (1070/517)
868 (567/301)
149 (107/42)
The numbers are denoted as total (male/female students).
The source of funding for basic chemistry research is generally provided by the National Science Council. There are approximately 500 principal investigators in chemistry institutions running approximately 600 projects. The total budget is 1.2 billion NT dollars per year, which is more or less equivalent to US $40 million per year. There are approximately 600 PhD students involved with the projects, approximately 1200 master students, approximately 66 assistants, and approximately 200 postdoctoral researchers. In terms of quality of research, one potential estimator is the Scientific Citation index (SCI). Table 3 illustrates the ranking of SCI papers from Taiwan.
Table 3. The ranking of SCI papers from Taiwan based on Essential Science Indicators(a). (Source: National Science Council, Taiwan) Field
No. of SCI papers
No. of citations
Citations/paper
2009
2010
2011
2012
2009
2010
2011
2012
2009
2010
2011
2012
chem
15
15
15
15
18
18
18
17
33
33
32
32
phys
16
16
14
14
21
20
20
20
50
49
53
53
math
18
17
17
17
20
21
21
21
29
34
38
40
earth sci
25
24
23
21
24
24
24
25
51
52
49
52
(a)
Updated as of January 1, 2013 to cover a 10-year + 10-month period.
161 Cheng et al.; Vision 2025: How To Succeed in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.
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Another crude way of measuring success of the chemistry enterprise is the chemical sales as compared to other countries. In Figure 1 Taiwan’s sale of chemicals is compared to other top chemical exporters around the world.
Figure 1. Chemical sales in 2011 in billions of Euros. (Source: Cefic, Facts and Figures, 2012).
After their education and research careers, the students in the chemistry departments often find jobs in the high-tech industry, in the chemical industry, in the chemical engineering industry, or the pharmaceutical industry. Figure 2 illustrates the total production value of Taiwan’s chemical production in 2012.
Figure 2. Total production value of chemical industry in Taiwan is US$144.4 billion (2012). The pie chart shows the sub-industries contributing to the total production value. (Source: Department of Statistics, Ministry of Economic Affairs and Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan (USD:NTD = 30:1)). 162 Cheng et al.; Vision 2025: How To Succeed in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.
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Another indication of Taiwan’s Chemical research talent is the total number of employees in the chemical industry. Figure 3 illustrates the employees of chemical industry in Taiwan.
Figure 3. Total employees of chemical industry in Taiwan. The total employment is 452,806 (2012). (Source: Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, Executive Yuan and Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan).
As illustrated by the statistics in Figure 3, the opportunity for chemical industry is based on its talent pool and production. While Taiwan has very little raw materials, Taiwan does import raw materials and provide value added processing. However, this strategy is increasingly facing challenges from Taiwan’s neighbors due partly to more cost-competitive research and development centers staffed by less costly human resources. Taiwan has addressed this challenge by moving more to heavily value-added products, such as optoelectronic materials (e.g. LCD, LED, solar cell, OLED materials), medicinal products, printing and data storage materials, and special chemicals for the semiconductor industry. Figure 4 illustrates an example of how Taiwan has shifted their economical business model within the petrochemical industry. The three main future developments are: 1) maintain economic growth, 2) add no environmental burden, 3) promote energy efficiency. The strategies include low carbon emission, threngthened safety management, enhanced energy efficiency, and the development of high-value added product. Several companies and joint ventures in Taiwan are now involved with high value-added petrochemicals, such as ethylene glycol, C5 chemicals, and petroleum resins for production in 2013-2015. 163 Cheng et al.; Vision 2025: How To Succeed in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.
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Figure 4. Taiwan’s Petrochemical Industry Development Strategy. (Source: Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan).
Conclusions Despite the shortage of raw materials and energy, Taiwan has developed a capitalist economy that ranks as the 18th in the world by gross domestic product (GDP). The chemical industry accounts for about 29% of the GDP. However, Taiwan’s chemical industry is facing many challenges today: competition from Asian neighbors, high oil prices, trade barriers, and international regulatory requirements. The Taiwan government has identified biotechnology, medical care, green energy, agriculture, optoelectronic materials and semiconductor among others, as strategic industries. Chemical industry is increasingly seeking to improve and upgrade its production technology and create value-added products. To achieve the goal, some chemical companies have seeked collaboration with universities in research and development projects and in training and acquiring the the suitable researchers and engineers. The CSLT is successfully adapting to these developments as it seeks to serve its members. Its annual meeting constantly attracts over 2000 participants with more than 1000 papers presented. It has organized many successful international chemical conferences, including Asian Chemical Congress (1999), IUPAC Macro (2008), and Pacific Polymer Conference (2013). In addition, the International Chemical Conference Taipei (ICCT) has been organized by CSLT since 1977. Recent themes included chemical education (2010), analytical chemistry (2008), materials and catalysis (2007), and synthetic chemistry (2005). The full scope of CSLT’s educational, research, and publication activities is given in its website: www.chemistry.org.tw 164 Cheng et al.; Vision 2025: How To Succeed in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.
Acknowledgments
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We thank Industrial Technology Research Institute, National Science Council, Taiwan, the Chemical Society Located in Taipei and The EuropeanChemical Industry Council (cefic) for providing data for this article.
165 Cheng et al.; Vision 2025: How To Succeed in the Global Chemistry Enterprise ACS Symposium Series; American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 2014.
