In 2006, the National Taiwan University set up the Social Policy Research Center with the aim of promoting academic diversity and cross-disciplinary research and development. Professor Lih-Rong Wang from the Department of Social Work was the center's first director (with a term lasting three years, and each appointment spanning two terms) and she was tasked with planning the activities at the center and promoting it. However, in recent years, Taiwan has faced dramatic changes due to globalization, which has resulted in challenges to Taiwan's transformation on the global stage, as well as regionally and locally. As such, owing to the various environmental and technological risks, it was decided at the 2785th university-level administrative meeting in November 2013 that the Social Policy Research Center would be renamed as the Risk Society and Policy Research Center (henceforth referred to as the "Centre") with Prof Kuei-Tien Chou from the Graduate Institute of National Development as the Chief Director, and with Associate Professor Kuo-Hui Chang appointed as the Executive Director from September 2016.

Today, when it comes to debates in Taiwan about social issues, such as in food safety and environmental pollution, policy formulation is often unclear and poorly communicated leading to mistrust between the public and the government as well as with businesses, resulting in undue confrontations. There is therefore an urgent need in Taiwan 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. As such, tapping on the academic excellence at the College of Social Sciences, the Centre aspires to deepen our research skills and promote cross-disciplinary research and collaboration, to build communication bridges and connections between the government and the public. We look forward to receiving contributions from the international community to strengthen our research capabilities and resources, and to work together with them to effect social change and enhance risk communication, so that we can steer Taiwan out of the doldrums into a better and brighter future.

Inception

In recent years, the world is increasingly threatened by the globalization of risks and its impact, and the Taiwanese society is also being confronted with major changes, such as in poverty and the distributive justice of income and wealth, an aging population and low fertility, as well as social and security risks that our families, the elderly and new immigrants are exposed to, and other identity issues. Additionally, the Global Financial Crisis has led to economic and employment risks, etc., and transnational issues such as food pollution, emerging technologies, environmental risks, severe climate change and global warming, have greatly impact on our society and businesses and the development of sustainable economic growth and energy use. All these changes mean that Taiwan faces major transformational changes globally, regionally and locally, which therefore requires an urgent need to build strong foundations and to develop sustained research and practices regarding policies pertaining to social security, population issues, food safety, industrial development, environmental protection, energy use and climate change.

The Center was established with the focus to conduct research with an eye on the above issues, under two broad themes: (1) social security policies and on (2) science, technological and environmental issues, to promote sustained and in-depth discussions and to encourage greater social participation and commitment in dealing with these issues. Since inception the Center has taken the lead to introduce concepts from European Foundation on Social Quality approach, and conducted surveys to construct social quality indicators relevant to the Asian region, and to look at the present situation and changing trends in our society, to research on how they compare with the other countries in Asia. In addition, since the 2008 Financial Crisis, the Typhoon Morakot disaster in 2009 and the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 which triggered economic, environmental, nuclear and other health risks, the Center has proactively organized various academic seminars and forums, and invited overseas and local scholars to share on their resilience, reconstruction and transformation experiences, which has given our academic research center a hands-on understanding on the power of social practice. In recent years, with the emergence of various emerging social risks, environmental and technological risks brought on by globalization, these dramatic changes have long surpassed the scope of existing policies and research, and in fact its impact is no longer felt only within the confines of any one single discipline. In order to strengthen and deepen our research capabilities and establish effective communication strategies, the Center gradually focused its research on climate change and energy transition. Our core research is trained along these focal areas: 

(1) Establishing consensus for Taiwan's energy transition and social transformation

(2) Governance of carbon-emission and air pollution in industrial 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

Rationale behind Establishing the Center

Taiwan currently faces risks pertaining to food safety, environmental pollution, youth unemployment and economic slowdown. The public has the right to gain a deeper understanding of the emergence of the various types of risks and their corresponding influences, as well as the right to understand the processes behind how relevant policies are currently being formulated, implemented and evaluated. The Centre is premised on the idea that academia should seek to advance its work on the principles of social practice, and we therefore hope to use the past experience that we have accumulated in multidisciplinary research to proactively conduct in-depth research on emerging risks, and to present them to the wider audience and via public platforms so as to stimulate discussion between businesses and the public to engender cross-sectoral exchanges and mutual understanding. Our Centre is the first in Taiwan dedicated to the broadening and deepening of academic research in the discipline of risk society and policy research, and to also bring academics, practitioners and policymakers, etc., to conduct cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral exchanges via public forums. In addition, strong emphasis is placed on talent cultivation at the Center to develop knowledge-based research and build up the intellectual capacity in Taiwan, so as to break down the barriers to research between academia, practitioners and policymakers.

In recent years, the world is increasingly threatened by the globalization of risks and its impact. All these changes mean that Taiwan faces major transformational changes globally, regionally and locally, but these dramatic changes have long surpassed the scope of existing policies and research, and in fact its impact is no longer felt only within the confines of any one single discipline. For example, when debating about social issues, such as in food safety and environmental pollution, policy formulation is often unclear and poorly communicated leading to mistrust between the public and the government as well as with businesses, resulting in undue confrontations. The public has the right to gain a deeper understanding of the emergence of the various types of risks and their corresponding influences, as well as the right to understand the processes behind how relevant policies are currently being formulated, implemented and evaluated.

Today, 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. To this end, research lies at the heart of everything that the Center does and it is committed to conducting research to generate new knowledge. With the Center's existing network of cross-disciplinary research resources, and with the relevant experts, scholars, and practitioners that we have regular access to, who also have interests aligned to the Center's medium- to long-term research orientation, this can aid in strengthening the capabilities of our researchers, which comprises postdoctoral research fellows, assistant researchers and part-time assistants. In this way, we can engage in in-depth and extensive debates on the various major social risks in Taiwan to develop practical and substantive policy recommendations. In addition, 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, and to utilize face-to-face events, and online and digital marketing to disseminate knowledge. In time to come, academic research will no longer be seen as challenging, and the role of research then is to advance the knowledge of our citizenry and aid in the bottom-up transformation in Taiwan.

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.