Academia Sinica, founded in 1928, is the most prominent academic institution in the Republic of China. While affiliated directly to the Presidential Office of R.O.C., Academia Sinica enjoys independence and autonomy in formulating its own research objectives. Its major tasks are to undertake in-depth academic research on various subjects in the sciences and humanities, and to provide guidelines, channels of coordination, and incentives in order to raise academic standards in the country.

In recent years, under the leadership of President Yuan T. Lee, Academia Sinica has been transformed into a modern research institution. Many of the 28 research institutes are now headed by world-class scholars and staffed by highly-trained, motivated, and creative young investigators. Major strides have also been made toward raising the standards of academic research, and Academia Sinica is presently positioning itself to move its research activities to the international level. Aside from placing greater emphasis on opening up new areas of intellectual endeavors, Academia Sinica is also taking a leadership role in launching new initiatives in applied research to meet the broad spectrum of societal needs within Taiwan.

To fulfill these goals, Academia Sinica has adopted various measures to promote internal integration of research activities in the three broad research areas (mathematics and physical sciences, life sciences, and the humanities and social sciences) to improve the planning, implementation, and evaluation of long-term projects. Academia Sinica aims to enhance the impact of its research activities, to harness basic research results for applications and technology transfer, to engage Taiwan?s academic and research communities in a modern and forward-looking collective academic vision, to cultivate an intellectual environment that is conducive to the nurturing of young scholars and the recognition of outstanding scholarship in Taiwan, and to promote international cooperation and scholarly exchanges that will accelerate the overall development of academic research in Academia Sinica and the Republic of China.

• Institute of Atomic and Molecular Sciences, Academia Sinica
• Institute of Mathematics, Academia Sinica