Director Hungdah Su Signed a Dual Degree Agreement during His Visit to France, Deepening Cooperation and Exchange with Excellent French Universities

Hungdah Su, Dean of the College of Social Sciences, National Taiwan University (NTU), and Marc Chia-Ching Cheng, Executive Director of the European Union Centre in Taiwan (EUTW), visited Sciences Po Bordeaux in person on 14 December , 2022. Witnessed by Professor Gilles Bertrand, Head of the Department of International Relations, Associate Professor Anthony Amicelle, Director of Master Programmes, Madame Lucile Martin, Vice President for International Affairs, and Madame Carol Lin, member of the Office of International Affairs, they signed a dual Master’s degree agreement with Professor Dominique Darbon, President of Sciences Po Bordeaux. It is agreed upon that, since 2023, each year, both parties could send up to 5 master’s students to each other’s school for a year of study. Those students will obtain the NTU and Sciences Po Bordeaux degrees after finishing an English essay and the oral defence procedure. They need not pay the tuition fee of the other school and will be given priority for dormitory allocation.

With the vision to complete more bilateral cooperation and exchange agreements during his term, President Darbon of Sciences Po Bordeaux is also open to establishing a dual Bachelor's degree in the future. He hopes to solidify institutional cooperation mechanisms based on this dual Master's degree agreement.

On the morning of 15 December, Dean Su and other members of the Taiwanese delegation met Anne-Celia Feutrie, Director of the Paris Campus of Sciences Po Paris. They exchanged opinions on the co-organisation of La Nuit des idées (the Night of Ideas) with the Bureau Français de Taipei and the cooperation with their students. They also discussed the possibility of the College of Social Sciences at NTU participating in joint courses with Sciences Po Paris and Princeton University.

On the afternoon of 15 December, Dean Su and others of the delegation visited École Normale Supérieure (ENS). After the talks with Cedric Guillerme, Director of International Affairs at ENS, Professor Johanna Simeant Germanos, Director of the Department of Social Sciences at ENS, Professor Blaise Wilfert-Portal, Director of Studies of the Department of Social Sciences at ENS, and Florian Couveinhes Matsumoto, who had given a speech at NTU before, it had been confirmed that the two schools would sign exchange and cooperation agreement. Director Germanos personally invited the faculty members of the College of Social Sciences at NTU to be visiting professors at ENS. ENS expressed a strong interest in the NTU International Mentorship Programme and hoped to establish the mechanisms of a European research network and student internship with EUTW through this exchange.

Before all the meetings mentioned above, Dean Su had already visited expatriate leaders Wai-Sing Paul TING and his wife, the patrons of NTU Sun Yat-sen France Scholarship, on the day he arrived in Paris (12 December). Dean Su expressed his caring and respect for them and, in the meanwhile, presented the objectives of this visit to France and the vision of future exchange with French universities. Mr Ting not only expressed his support for these objectives, but he also agreed to resume his sponsorship of the scholarship. He even decided to increase the amount of sponsorship in support of the dual Master’s degree programme between Taiwan and France.

The visit of Dean Su and this delegation to France not only brought about the signing of the dual Master' s degree agreement with Sciences Po Bordeaux, but it also succeeded in establishing contacts with Sciences Po Paris and École Normale Supérieure, two of the most prestigious institutions in cultivating French political elites. College of Social Sciences of NTU and EUTW will continue to foster the institutional framework for student exchange and academic cooperation with excellent European universities to deepen the exchange and collaboration between NTU and renowned universities worldwide.