In order to help local industries, Chung Cheng University (CCU) signed a cooperation agreement for placemaking planning with Chiayi County Government and the Guanyin Waterfall Community Industry Cooperative (觀音瀑布社區產業合作社) at Jhuci (a.k.a. Zhuqi, 竹崎) Township, Chiayi County, on the 1st of July 2022. In the future, CCU will serve as a local placemaking think tank, with the mutual support from the three parties, to carry out the relevant industrial research and development, promote the industry-government-academic cooperation, assist in the talent cultivation with the teaching and internship arrangement, etc., in the hope to effectively deploy resources from the communities, the public sector and the academia to revitalize the development of local industries as well as expanding the economic benefits.

The placemaking cooperation program was signed by Dr. Sheng-Ju Chan (詹盛如), Dean of CCU Office of Student Affairs, Pen-Fu Huang (黃本富), Director of the Planning Department of Chiayi County Government, and Ming-An Lin (林銘安), Chairman of Guanyin Waterfall Community Industrial Cooperative and Chief of Wenfeng Village (文峰村). The agreement aims at supporting the Guanyin Waterfall Community Industrial Cooperative to apply for government programs on multifaceted jobs creativity and obtain the funding to recruit relevant talents, to help develop local tourism industry. Dr. Sheng-Ju Chan stated that local revitalization requires the joint efforts from everyone, with the full collaboration of the public sector and local residents, the tourism development and resources integration of community industries can become more professional oriented and be well organized. And together with the joint efforts to market for local distinctive tourism highlights, a more prosperous and brighter future for the tourism industry in Alishan (阿里山) area shall be expected.

Since 2018, CCU has been actively participating in the PlaceMaking programs promoted by the Chiayi and Yunlin county governments. In the early stage of the promotion, the main goal of these programs was to encourage the returning population and to re-invigorate the industrial economy, by investing resources and cultivating the working team to carried out the pilot projects, and the supports from CCU to actively match the expertise between CCU teacher team and the local government for them to jointly look through the fundamental data of community industries (the community industry DNA) for the whole cooperative group to work out the possible solutions.

Placemaking is the action aimed at promoting the regional revitalization. It injects new energy to stimulate the growth of local economy based on the findings in the features of local community, and to create a virtuous cycle between job opportunities, people and the society. Placemaking creates job opportunities through the vitalization process, and thus helps drive the increase of local population. It can also help formulate the action strategies and programs for community development that conform to local features. Dr. Jung-Ting Tsai, CCU Vice President, pointed out that from being the talents cultivation center, to being the think tank to participate in regional development, through these University Social Responsibility (USR) exercises, the university has expanded its social responsibility vision, turning its direction towards local communities and the important issues associated with their livelihood. She stressed that only when the university and local communities are well connected with each other and interact intensively, so the true USR spirit can begin to manifest.

CCU Office for Social Responsibility stated that Guanyin Waterfall is a well-known tourist attraction in Chiayi County. The Guanyin Waterfall Community Industry Cooperative was co-established by Wenfeng Village (文峰村) and Jinshi Villages (金獅村) in Jhuci Township, and started its trial running at the beginning of this year. Lately, when the community cooperative planned to submit its second-stage proposal for funding, it turned to CCU, the university which has been actively promoting USR in recent years, to seek support. At the moment, the 2-year cooperation agreement between three parties to help the community has been sealed, and in response to the signing, CCU has launched some relevant cooperative projects, including the preparation to assist talents cultivation for the community industries in the future to start with.

Dr. Hsiang-Chen Wang, Head of the Office of Research and Development, also mentioned that in addition to the facilitation for the community development from CCU Colleges of Science and of Engineering, other CCU Colleges such as Humanity, Management, and Education also have professionals related to cultural creativity, marketing, and the elderly research, who are competent to give hands to invigorate local communities and add value to the local industries. This agreement will not only allow the sharing of the resources in this tripartite cooperation, but also help enrich the placemaking team with sufficient labor force and other resources to do the job properly. Dr. Wang hopes that this cooperation can inspire other townships to take part in the similar projects to continuously strengthen the connection between CCU and the local communities, and become a major driving force in promoting the development of independent economy at local communities in Chiayi area.