Promoting Taiwan’s Higher Education: Delegation Participates in the 2024 EAIE Conference in France
The European Association for International Education (EAIE) held its 2024 annual conference in Toulouse, France from September 17 to 20. National Taiwan Normal University President Cheng-Chih Wu , chairperson of the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET), led a delegation of more than 50 participants from 21 universities to participate in the conference. Mei-Chen Lu, Education Division Director of the Taipei Representative Office in France, along with Lih-Tien Hsu, secretary of the Education Division, welcomed the delegation and discussed opportunities for research and education cooperation in France.
Wu stated that this year marked the 34th anniversary of the EAIE Conference and Exhibition, a quintessential higher education event in Europe. This year’s theme was “En route!” (French for “Go!”), a powerful call to educators from all over the world. The conference saw more than 6,500 representatives from universities and research institutions participating in more than 240 events.
According to Wu, Taiwan is a key partner of the European Union in Asia, with close cooperation in the areas of human rights, gender equality, social issues, climate change, education, and cultural events. In 2023, Taiwan's Ministry of Education (MOE) launched a program that aims to boost enrollment and retention of international students, with a five-year budget of USD160 million. Under this program, the University Academic Alliance in Taiwan, formed by 12 Taiwanese universities, will seek to strengthen partnerships with five university alliances in Europe, the U.S., and Japan. Through the Horizon Europe initiative and the Jean Monnet Project, Taiwan and the EU forge strong partnerships for international research.
MOE statistics shows nearly 7,300 European students are studying in Taiwan in 2024, with more than 80% of them coming from EU member states, and more than 10,000 Taiwanese students studying in Europe, with most of them also in EU member states. This shows that the education exchanges and talent mobility between Taiwan and the EU have been robust and will continue to flourish.
To strengthen education partnership between Taiwan and France, the two countries have adopted a multi-faceted approach that includes the annual Taiwan-France Educational Cooperation Meeting, the Taiwan-France Higher Education Leaders Forum, the Taiwan Studies Project, as well as inking more cooperation agreements and implementing language teaching assistants exchange program, and these programs have yielded remarkable results. This year (2024), France is the European country that has the most students studying in Taiwan, with more than 1,700 students in Mandarin language programs and exchange programs.
During the conference, FICHET organized a Taiwan Night networking event at Hotel NH Toulouse Airport on the evening of September 18. Representatives of the 21 Taiwanese universities and their partner universities attended the dinner, amounting to about 100 attendees. Discussion was lively at the event and revolved around forming multilateral partnerships and strengthening educational cooperation.