The Center believes that it shoulders the responsibility to establish our research in the areas of public policy and social protection, and to promote cross-disciplinary communication and exchanges, so as to bridge the gap between academia, policymaking and practice.

There are three primary goals:

(1) The Development of Cross-Disciplinary and Cross-Sectoral Communication Platforms

In the face of increasing threats due to the globalization of risks and its impact, Taiwan urgently needs to intensify research in the area of policy formulation and effective communication, and to identify channels and platforms for these policies to be communicated to the citizenry. With the Center's existing network of cross-disciplinary research resources, we would like to regularly invite cross-disciplinary experts and academics, and interested stakeholders who work in fields aligned to our medium- to long-term research areas, to collaborate with us on developing new communication platforms. The importance of these platforms are far reaching and we would like to work with the dynamics created between academics and practitioners, and between theory and practice, and in this process of communication and the deepening of our conversations, create a continuous feedback loop which can aid in the verification of one another's ideas so as to develop practical and substantive policy proposals.

At the same time, the Center is committed to generating new knowledge around the Centre's core issues, and to translate research outcomes into ideas that can be shared with and valued by the general public. We also plan to organize face-to-face events (such as the Great Transformation New Horizons Salons and the Taiwan Risk Society Forums) and outreach via the online and digital mediums (via websites, digital radio stations and Facebook) to disseminate knowledge and enhance citizenry understanding of these issues so as to propel bottom-up transformation in Taiwan.

(2) A Commitment to Developing the Center as a Global Academic Hub and Taiwan's Think Tank

We hope that we can enhance the collaboration between intra-university cross-disciplinary research and cross-sectoral research, and strengthen our local policy research so that we can plug the Center into the global research network and allow it to become the focal point in Taiwan to coordinate international social policy research. Since the Center was set up, we have been proactive in developing our network of international researchers and have attended international conferences and conducted exchange visits and such, to expand our links with Asia and Europe and promoted further collaboration, with the aim of making Taiwan a global academic hub. Through the networks of research collaborations that we have established with international actors, we hope to see research maturity in the areas of climate change, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Deep Decarbonization Pathway Projects (DDPP), environmental protection and energy use, and to see our research contribute to developing sustainable societies, and regional and global risk management. These exchanges with international research collaborators will enable Taiwan to achieve breakthroughs in establishing international relationships with our counterparts and aid Taiwan in joining our fellow researchers as equals on the world stage.

The Center looks forward to expanding our role and establishing the Center as the hub for international exchanges in Taiwan, and in doing so be able to accumulate a wealth of experience and resources which will enable us to attract young scholars, researchers and policy analysts to join our team, and to develop Taiwan's think tanks and intellectual capacity, so as to drive Taiwan's transformation.

(3) The Promotion of Social Change and Innovation

In addition to establishing the Taiwan National University as a heavyweight in policy research and to enhance the university's international reputation, we also hope that by conducting even more broad-based and in-depth policy research, that we can make concrete contributions to improve the Taiwanese society. Our mission is to develop a successful knowledge society where knowledge is valued and to promote a deeper understanding of the various contemporary issues on social changes and their corresponding policies. We also aim to translate our academic findings into knowledge that can be easily understood and valued by businesses, the government and the public, so that we can build bridges between academia and the wider population, and be able to develop a comprehensive effort at enhancing Taiwan's intellectual capacity. We hope that by starting from ourselves and using an evidence-approach towards procuring knowledge, we can inspire others from all segments of society to invest their time and energy to also educate others about social policy research, so that together we can create social change and strengthen risk communication, and to bring Taiwan towards a brighter future that we can all look forward to.

Center Responsibilities

In Taiwan, when it comes to debates about social issues, such as in food safety and environmental pollution, there tends to be mistrust between businesses and the public which can lead to confrontations or avoidance between the parties resulting in problems snowballing until they can become challenging to resolve. As such, we believe that in these times of change, we need to strengthen our research capacity in risk management and to enhance the public's risk perception, as well as to implement effective risk communication strategies, so that we can strengthen the trust between the government, the public and businesses, in order to achieve breakthroughs in communication and be able to devise solutions even for the most difficult problems, by focusing on risk management research and strengthening risk communication practices.

The Center's core research is focused on the following:

(1) Establishing consensus for Taiwan's energy transition and social transformation
(2) Governance of carbon-emission and air pollution in industry and energy sectors
(3) Understanding the forces behind Taiwan's energy system transformation: policy and legal perspectives
(4) Building a database of energy system transformation

We believe that these areas are key to the current social transformation in Taiwan. In addition to the above issues, we are also developing our transnational research expertise so as to improve the international and regional visibility of Taiwan's academia, and by developing a risk management framework, through having an understanding of the risks present in each country around the world as a starting point to identify contextual risk management issues that is specific to Taiwan.

By conducting research to advise policymaking, and setting up the capacity for long-term policy discussion and consultancy, we are also attempting to translate our research outcomes into knowledge that can be easily grasped by businesses, the government and the general public, through implementing effective communication strategies, and strengthening risk communication practice, so as to achieve breakthroughs to bridge academia and society. Continuing with the Center's three main aims and objectives – (1) the development of a cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral communication platform, (2) developing the Centre into a global academic hub to become the brain behind Taiwan's social innovation, and (3) to promote social change and innovation – the actual implementation of the Center's tasks can be broadly divided into the following five categories:

(1) A commitment to in-depth knowledge production: to systematically accumulate research data and output and conduct long-term research on the development of sustainable societies, climate change, energy transformation and energy laws, as well as to study the integration of policy planning and risk communication, so as to become an important center of intellectual thought in Taiwan.

(2) Provide a communication platform and channel for the general public: includes organizing public forums and raising public visibility, to promote dialogue between businesses, the government, academia and the public, and to enhance Taiwan's knowledge base and social strengths, such as by organizing Great Transformation New Horizons Salons and the Taiwan Risk Society Forums.

(3) Produce publications to generate and disseminate new knowledge and to facilitate long-term policy discussions to effect social change: translate academic writings into easy-to-read publications such as the Taiwan Risk Analysis Report, by writing on issues of social concern.

(4) Inculcate and encourage the foundational research of society, and strengthen intellectual capacity development to aid in Taiwan's transformation: promote the Center to play a complementary role to perform research in areas where national funding is unable to fulfill, and to let the research convergence at the Center help to establish a long-term roadmap for talent development to enable the Center to strength its research foundations.

(5) Promote international exchanges to grow Taiwan's knowledge base and develop a marketing strategy to alleviate Taiwan's status as a global academic hub: align the academia of Taiwan's risk society and policymaking with international standards, and promote the domestic and foreign mobilization and sharing of research resources to improve the overall research quality.