Taiwan’s national academy

What it does

Academia Sinica’s statutory mission is to pursue research excellence, nurture academic talent and issue policy advisories. It has 24 institutes and 9 research centres in three divisions: Mathematics and Physical Sciences, Life Sciences, and Humanities and Social Sciences.

Besides the main campus in Nankang, it lists two more sites: a South Campus and the National Biotechnology Research Park, completed in 2018. It also trains doctoral students through the Taiwan International Graduate Program, whose first student graduated in 2006.

From Nanjing to Nankang

The first record of plans for the academy is a motion passed on 17 April 1927. In 1928 Academia Sinica was set up as an independent research body with Yuan-Pei Tsai as its president and its main office in Nanjing; it was formally established at its first General Assembly on 9 June 1928. The first 81 Academicians were elected in 1948.

In 1949 the academy moved to Taiwan. Only the Institute of History and Philology and the Institute of Mathematics arrived in time, and their books and artefacts were stored for a while at the Yangmei railway station depot. Construction of the Nankang campus began in 1954, and on 15 December that year Academia Sinica started administrative operations there. Hu Shih became president in 1958.

The following decades rebuilt the sciences one institute at a time. The Institute of Physics was re-established in 1962, Chemistry became a full institute in 1965, and from the 1970s new preparatory offices grew into institutes for biological chemistry, Earth sciences, information science, statistics, biomedical sciences, atomic and molecular sciences, molecular biology and astronomy. Among later presidents were Ta-You Wu (1983–1994) and Yuan T. Lee (1994–2006); James C. Liao has been president since 2016 (status as of 3 November 2026).

Earth sciences

The Institute of Earth Sciences grew out of a seismic studies group in the Institute of Physics: a preparatory office was set up in 1976 and it became a full institute in August 1982. It works in two disciplines, geophysics and geochemistry, for both global and Taiwan-specific studies.

The institute says its geophysics is particularly strong in seismology and has long-standing expertise in geomagnetism, with growing work on GPS, gravity and remote sensing for studying active tectonics. Its geochemists study mountain building, volcanoes and geological dating, mainly with radioactive and stable isotopes. It operates geophysical and geodetic networks on Taiwan and nearby islets, alongside those of other agencies such as the Central Weather Administration, and runs a doctoral programme in Earth system sciences for international students.

Two examples show how close this research is to the city. Its scientists have recorded how Taipei 101 vibrated during a distant earthquake and a typhoon, described on A pendulum in a skyscraper, and in 2019 the institute co-organised a workshop on the Tatun volcanoes and volcanic hazard mitigation with the Tatun volcano observatory.

Astronomy and astrophysics

Astronomy was one of the first programmes when Academia Sinica was founded in 1928. The Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) began as a preparatory office in 1993, on the recommendation of Academician Chia-Chiao Lin, and became a full institute in June 2010. It is based in the Astronomy-Mathematics Building on the campus of National Taiwan University, with a field office in Hawaii, and reports more than 170 staff (status as of 3 November 2026).

Its research ranges from the solar system and the formation of planets and stars to galaxies, cosmology and supermassive black holes, with groups for theory, experiments and instrument building. It takes part in projects including ALMA, the Submillimeter Array, the Greenland Telescope, the Subaru Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, and lists projects such as the TAOS II occultation survey of objects beyond Neptune and the BURSTT radio survey telescope in Taiwan.

Open to the public

Every October since 1998, Academia Sinica has held an Open House with hundreds of activities: science lectures, laboratory tours, poster exhibitions and family games. The academy also hosts large international meetings: in 2016 the 23rd conference of the Pacific Science Association and in 2017 the 32nd conference of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). More public events are on Conferences & Events.