Concluding Remarks

This paper found that higher education policy has impacted academic ideology and practices to a great extent in Taiwan between 1993 and 2013. It was also found that an increasing gender disparity came to exist between disciplines. It is also found that those who are on a track to rapid promotion enjoy more international

recognition and academic networking via publication in key English journals.

However, the younger generation has been criticized for losing contact with their local audience and tended to have less social impact in Taiwan.

Since the early 2000s, government policies have placed institutional and faculty research output under pressure to achieve ‘world-class university’ status and meet quality control measures stemming from higher education expansion. The university began to impose reward incentives and regulations to gear faculty research

publication towards key journals. The introduction of six-years’ probation for new faculty and the five-year-cycle-faculty basic performance evaluation systems in 2001

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played a key role in monitoring faculty research performance and output.

Consequently, faculty members, especially junior ones with a science, technology and quantitative research backgrounds obtained faster promotion through tending to publish more SSCI and TSSCI papers. But the trade-off is that those who are on the right track enjoy more international recognition and academic networking via

publication in English key journals simultaneously lose contact with their local audience and tend to have less social impact in their home country. The current academic reward system in Taiwan has narrowed down the definition of academic research to paper publication by seeking to apply a particular definition of

‘world-class university.’ In reality, a top institution should be expected to be globally competitive, but also to embrace a humane value orientation, and maintain the core mission for teaching and research (Shin, 2013b). In Taiwan, the most easily

quantifiable measure of global competitiveness – English language journal publication – has been adopted.

What is more important for education scholars than their publication output is their overall academic impact on society. This impact includes both the quantity and the quality of research output. It also includes journal papers, books and many other forms of research outcomes and social contribution. In countries without centralized funding or assessment schemes, the SSCI is not emphasised and

university professors are judged in a holistic way. But in a Chinese society like Taiwan an objective system with impartial and quantifiable indicators is widely accepted, even if the system has flaws and controversies.

The introduction of the indexed journal publication policy aroused social controversies from the beginning. Among these debates, an on-line petition

endorsed by more than three thousand local academics and educators was initiated in 2010, promoting an alternative reward system consisting of multiple criteria for research output (Chou, Lin & Chiu, 2013). In response, to overcome the drawbacks of the current publication- first policy and respond to academic disquiet, MOE initiated a trial program entitled “Faculty Multiple Promotion” in 2013

(http://amaaa.nsysu.edu.tw/ezfiles/258/1258/img/1547/200341783.pdf;

http://c014.wzu.edu.tw/front/bin/ptdetail.phtml?Part=1040608_01). This program,

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scheduled for nationwide implementation in 2016, attempts to offset the over -emphasis of key journal papers in faculty promotion by introducing at least three types of performance criteria on research, teaching or practical contribution to business and industry. The reform is especially welcome by faculty from institutes of technology whose practical skills and knowledge have been neglected in the current promotion system.

Though the SSCI-focussed mentality has been imbedded in all faculty reward and evaluation systems across Taiwan, social concerns and awareness over the preceding issues have been more and more evident and accepted as grounds for change . It is likely that a diverse and multi-channel alternative will come into effect in the near future. It is hoped that the “publish globally and perish locally” phenomenon will be considered along with the inevitable drive for global talents and human resources.

The university, as one of Taiwan’s most vulnerable HEIs under the current paper-driven policy, should also take a lead in researching a de-construction of world-class university rankings with a focus on higher education sustainability

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