Background

The first Chinese book on public administration, titled Theory and Practice of Public Administration and published in 1935, was written by the Chinese scholar Jinjian Zhang, considered the father of public administration in Taiwan. In spite of this early published book, the first Department of Public Administration in Taiwan was launched 28 years later in 1963. Before that time, the field of public administration was recognised as a sub-discipline of political science (Kuo and Kuo, 2012). In addition, public policy has been studied under the umbrella of public administration in Taiwan. Jan (2005) notes two sources that drove the development of policy research. The first was in the early 1970s when some academic programmes began to provide series of courses and lectures related to public policy, including Dr Derlad A. McBeath as a visiting professor providing public policy lectures at National Chengchi University, Professor Shuen-jang Tang providing public policy courses at the National Chung Hsing University (renamed National Taipei University in 2000), and Dr Wendell E. Scheaffer as a guest speaker providing several speeches on public policy at the National Chung Hsing University. The other source is associated with government activities in the late 1970s, such as the initiation of a research programme of public policy education developed by the National Science Council of the Executive Yuan, and the redesign of the Government Scholarship for Overseas Study that included public policy as an examination subject.

Early publications in this field (hereafter, we do not distinguish the study of public policy from the study of public administration, as it is not easy to do so) were mostly textbooks for civil service examinations. During the 1990s, there was significant growth of public administration literature in terms of quantity and diversity. The rapid change in society along with economic development at that time meant studies about the government and policies were in demand. Meanwhile, a group of young scholars returned to Taiwan after completing their PhD degrees in associated fields in western countries, mostly the United States. They brought new energy to this field of study.

Faculty performance evaluation was introduced to universities in Taiwan between the late 1990s and early 2000s. The evaluation programmes in almost all universities use bibliometric data to assess the faculty's research performance at both individual and departmental levels.