News

The EU Centre in Taiwan (EUTW), the Bureau Français de Taipei (BFT), and the University Academic Alliance in Taiwan (UAAT) are pleased to co-host the Taiwan-France Higher Education Roundtable: The Role of Universities and Academic Freedom for the Future of Democracy. This event will bring together representatives from both France and Taiwan for an open dialogue to explore the challenges faced by contemporary higher education, as well as to foster academic exchange and cooperation between the two sides. The theme of this roundtable is "The Role of Universities and Academic Freedom for the Future of Democracy." The French delegation will include Professor Sylvie Retailleau, former French Minister of Higher Education and Research, and Professor François Taddei, an expert on university transformation in the era of innovation, education, and AI. We sincerely invite you to register and join us for the opportunity to engage in dialogue with the French representatives. Event details are as follows: Date/Time: 15:30-17:30 5 May 2025 Venue: RM419, 4F, College of Social Sciences, National Taiwan University  Hosts:  European Union Centre in Taiwan (EUTW), French Office in Taipei, The University Academic Alliance in Taiwan (UAAT) Agenda The Taiwan-France Higher Education Roundtable: The Role of Universities and Academic Freedom for the Future of Democracy Registration 15:30-15:45 (15 Mins) Opening Remarks ·  Franck Paris, Director of French Office in Taipei ·  European Economic and Trade Office (TBC) ·  Chung-Chih Wu, Vice President for Research and Development, National Taiwan University ·  Hungdah Su, Jean Monnet Professor and Director General of EU Centre in Taiwan 15:45-15:50 VIP Group Photo 15:50-17:20 Roundtable Moderator ·   Hungdah Su, Jean Monnet Professor and Director General of EU Centre in Taiwan Panelists  ·  Sylvie Retailleau, Former Minister for Higher Education and Research, France  ·  François Taddei, Founder and President of the Learning Planet Institute  ·  Taiwan Discussant I  ·  Taiwan Discussant II Q&A 17:20-17:30 Closing Remarks   Sylvie Retailleau

A university professor in physics and electronics at the University of Paris-Saclay, Sylvie Retailleau was Minister for Higher Education and Research from May 2022 to September 2024, after having chaired the University of Paris-Saclay from March 2020 to May 2022, the ComUE ‘Université Paris-Saclay’ in 2019 and the University of Paris-Sud from June 2016 to January 2019. She was Dean of the Faculty of Science at Orsay from September 2011 to May 2016.

She is currently a member of the Supervisory Board of the Institut Curie, a member of the Cercle Erasmus, a member of the HFSPO Grand Review High-Level Recommendation Panel, a member of the Think Tank Portiqo, a member of the Board of the Université de Lorraine, a member of the Scientific Council of the ESIEE, a member of the Board of the Institut Villebon Charpak, a member of the Board of the Fondation CentraleSupelec, and a member of the Steering Committee of the CMA CAP ELENA (Electronics in New Aquitaine).

She has chaired the research committee of France Université and is a member of the boards of several major institutions, including CNRS, INRIA, CEA, ENS Ulm and ENS Paris-Saclay, the Telecom Paris Tech school board and the board of campus France.

Her research focuses on physical modelling, circuit simulation and the development of innovative architectures for future generations of integrated components. She has headed a research team called ‘Composants Quantiques Intégrés pour la NanoELectronique’ (Integrated Quantum Components for Nanoelectronics), authored around 140 international publications, directed 11 theses and participated in or coordinated numerous European, industrial and ANR projects.

Sylvie Retailleau has been made a Knight of the Legion of Honour and an Officer of the National Order of Merit.

François Taddei


Passionate about youth education, François Taddei co-founded the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (CRI) in Paris in 2006, with the mission of training the next generation of scientists at the intersection of life sciences, learning, and digital technologies. In 2021, the CRI evolved into the Learning Planet Institute, reimagining learning through innovation and collaboration. This transformation highlights François commitment to reshaping education.

As the founder of the Learning Planet Institute, he supports large-scale collaboration to build a learning planet, with the backing of UNESCO and the United Nations University. Through challenges-based learning and interdisciplinarity, François is prototyping a model of a learning university to tackle global challenges.      

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Press Release

The 30th Taiwan European Cultural Forum, organized by the European Union Centre in Taiwan, was held on 18 May 2024 at Taipei Medical University. The forum spotlighted on the rich history of technological and artistic exchange of material civilization between the East and the West, highlighting the remarkable techniques and knowledge dissemination in glass craftsmanship, sericulture, and chemistry from Italy, France, and Germany between the 17th and 19th centuries. The event began with a speech by Ms. Cécile Renault, Head of culture, university cooperation and education of the French office in Taipei. She shared her views on cultural diplomacy and introduced recent initiatives by the French Office in Taipei, such as Villa Formose, to promote cultural cooperation between Taiwan and France. Afterward, Mr. Timo Kozlowski, Deputy Director of the Goethe-Institute Taipei took the stage to deliver a speech. He highlighted that the cultural exchanges discussed today marked an important era in history. In the current global context, the importance of knowledge sharing and cultural exchange has never been greater. Subsequently, Luisa Chang, convener of the forum and a professor secondment from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at National Taiwan University to Taipei Medical University, pointed out that the purpose of this forum was to promote the increasingly important values of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), encouraging faculty and students to broaden their horizons and learn different languages and cultures. Afterward, the Executive Director of European Union Center in Taiwan, Mr. Marc Cheng, indicated that the largest European community in Taiwan is centered around in the cultural sector, making the hosting of such forums particularly meaningful. Taiwan European Cultural Forum is especially noteworthy as it will celebrate its 10th anniversary this year. He expressed his gratitude to Professors Chang and Mau for their contributions and emphasized that they had spent nearly two years preparing for this forum. The forum invited three expert scholars as keynote speakers: Associate Research Fellow Dong-He Chen from the Department of Registration and Conservation at the National Palace Museum, Department Chairperson & Professor Chuan-Hui Mau from the Institute of History at National Tsing Hua University, and Professor Hao Chang from the Center for General Education at I-Shou University. They each discusssed the contributions of Italy, France, and Germany to the development of modern material civilization from the perspective of the history of science and technology. Associate Research Fellow Dong-He Chen first introduced the history of aventurine glass. Accidentally created in 17th-century Murano, Venice, its main feature is the countless golden metallic particles scattered throughout the opaque reddish-brown glass. The production process is complex, making it highly valuable and popular among European court and the upper class during the 18th and 19th centuries. Meanwhile, in the 35th years of Kangxi Emperor (1696), under the guidance of Father Kilian Stumpf, China began experimenting with the production of this glass, successfully creating it in 1741 during the Qianlong period. This glass later became popular in the Qing court, featuring an artistic style distinct from European aventurine glass. Professor Chuan-Hui Mau then introduced the development of "la chinoiserie" and the modern French sericulture industry. The term "la chinoiserie" first appeared in 1836 in the novels of Honoré de Balzac, but its emergence was not accidental. With the beginning of the Age of Exploration, reports from missionaries and goods introduced through maritime trade sparked a fascination with Chinese decorative styles. Compared to architecture and painting, "la chinoiserie" had a more lasting influence on silk fabrics. In the late 17th century, Louis XIV emulated the Qing court’s practice of ordering silk fabrics from the Three Silk Weavers, promoting the popularity of textile apparel, and gradually bringing the French sericulture industry to its peak. From the second half of the 18th century, more experiments and styles were carried out with reference to Chinese sericulture literature, and finally in the first half of the nineteenth century, the France sericulture school was developed that surpassed the sericulture industry in Italy. Professor Hao Chang presented on the dissemination of Western chemical knowledge to the East during the late Qing Dynasty and the prominent role of German chemists at that time. He noted that three works – “Treaties on Quantitative Chemical Analysis”, “Qualitative Chemical Analysis”, and “Quantitative Chemical Analysis” – translated by Anatole Billequin, John Fryer, and Shiu Shou at the Tongwen Guan in Beijing, based on the works of Karl Remigius Fresenius, the introduction of Western chemical knowledge reached its peak in the late Qing China. Fresenius was a student of Justus von Liebig, whose contributions significantly propelled Germany to become a global leader in chemistry during the first half of the 19th century. Liebig not only conducted pioneering research in the field but also established a chemical teaching laboratory at Justus Liebig University Gießen, which became a model emulated worldwide. After the presentations, the audience responded enthusiastically, asking highly professional questions that involved many technical details. The speakers, with their vast knowledge, patiently provided in-depth answers, further enriching the audience’s understanding of the forum’s topics. The discussions between the audience and speakers even extended beyond science and history to the realm of education systems. In concluding the forum, Professor Luisa Chang emphasized that the forum allowed us to discover others and understand ourselves, and that the divergent developments of material civilization after spreading from their places of origin are questions worth pondering. She also encouraged holding more sessions on this topic if the audience found it worth exploring further. The next Taiwan European Cultural Forum will take place at National Taiwan University, where we’ll have the pleasure of welcoming the new Head of the EU Representative to Taiwan to join. We invite both long-time attendees and newcomers to join us. Future sessions will continue at Taipei Medical University, and we look forward to the ongoing support from TMU’s faculty and students.

 

EETO

Publications

Chin-Peng Chu, Xin Chen (eds.)The four crises severely hampered the progress of European integration, and the COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated governance challenges for the EU. Over the last decade, the EU has undergone the European Constitutional Crisis, the Financial Crisis, the Migrant (Refugee) crisis, and the crisis of Brexit. As Jean Monnet, the father of European integration, had famously said, “I have always believed that Europe would be built through crises, and that it would be the sum of their solutions.” In this historical context of the EU's response to crises, the EU has progressively overcome challenges with its resilience.

The EU's policy response and its effectiveness are still in a phase of continuous change and observation. The various chapters of this book collectively feature twenty experts and scholars in European studies from both sides of the Taiwan Strait. They cover professional fields including law, politics, economics, international relations, finance, and more. The essays included in the first part provide a comprehensive understanding of pandemic governance from a macroscopic perspective. Accordingly, the essays in the second part focus on analyses at the level of economic and legal frameworks. This provides insight into understanding the latest legal developments in the EU, regional economic cooperation, currency competition, and more, offering contextual reflections under the global change of times.
EUTW Book Series Editor of the Series: Hungdah Su
Editors of the Book: Hungdah Su
To avoid a repeat of those nationalist nightmares, a common European Dream emerged after WWII, which has since developed into some essential doctrines of European integration. This dream-inspired institutionalist context has framed intergovernmental bargaining, sectoral spillovers and transnational cooperation in European integration. The powerful European Dream has even encouraged Europeans toward closer integration, though they were, quite often, very reluctant to go further. This dream-driven approach and reluctant runner’s model have highlighted some fundamental realities of European integration, extremely inspiring for the future of the EU and the ongoing Asian regionalism.

This book consists of three parts and thirteen chapters. It aims to explain European integration, the EU’s role in global governance and the EU’s impact upon Asian regionalism with the help of the European Dream approach and reluctant runners’ model. Trump’s unilateralism, the rising tensions between the US and PRC and the COVID-19 pandemic may be a turning point for world politics. Both globalization and global governance have consequently slowed down, giving place to regionalism and inter-regionalism. This book hopes to contribute to the rising debate over European integration, Asian regionalism and EU-Asian inter-regionalism.