The internationally important academic influence analysis database, “Essential Science Indicators™ (ESI)”, recently announced its 2022 statistical results. The ESI system delivered its evaluation results on the academic performance and the development trends in scientific research through a long-term quantitative analysis. According to the latest rankings, National Chung Cheng University (CCU) has achieved remarkably with its academic publications in Engineering and General Social Sciences research being recognized as the top 1% highly cited papers in the ESI world rankings. CCU stated that its research direction on Engineering and General Social Sciences has gradually changed from the mono-disciplinary conduct towards the interdisciplinary cooperation in recent years. The CCU members in these two fields not only actively leap at the opportunities of being part of large-scaled national programs, but also pay great attention to the regional integration in research around where the university is located, to enhance their international academic competitiveness.

CCU revealed that the ESI database is the world’s top scientific citation search and analytical information platform, and each of its statistical results is based on a ten-year rolling file and updated every two months. Built on the foundation datasets from the science citation index (SCIE) and the social science citation index (SSCI) of Web of Science™, and according to the science trend statistics drawn from a vast amount of articles from global journals, Essential Science Indicators™ delivers the in-depth coverage to effectively analyze and benchmark research performance, and to reveal emerging science trends as well as influential researchers, institutions, papers, journals and countries in 22 fields of research. This time, CCU ‘s academic publications in Engineering and General Social Sciences research having both been ranked the top 1% highly cited papers in the ESI world rankings indicated that, many of these highly cited papers from CCU are regarded as influential and highly valued by people of the world. (Note: part of the information here was retrieved from ESI website at https://clarivate.com/webofsciencegroup/solutions/essential-science-indicators/ )

According to the ESI statistics, engineering, chemistry, computer science, materials science, and general social sciences are the top five disciplines with the most published articles in CCU. Dr. Hsiang-Chen Wang, the director of CCU Office of Research and Development, pointed out that the number of papers published by CCU professors has steadily increased year by year in the past five years, particularly, the number of papers published in 2021 has even reached its record high in the university history. All that is closely related to the university’s direction for research and development in these years.

Dr. Hsiang-Chen Wang stated that the research of CCU in Engineering and General Social Sciences have gone from being mono-disciplinary to interdisciplinary in recent years, with many outstanding performances being recognized nationally and internationally. These great achievements include the efforts in developing the world’s smallest activated carbon nanospheres to cooperate with Stanford University to produce rechargeable alkali metal-chlorine battery, and the development of Electromagnetic Surfaces (ES) to eliminate over 95 percent of blind spots in telecommunications in response to the emerging 5G technology. Plus, the research from the university has also helped establish the AI automated production line to demonstrate gear manufacturing at Minsyong Industrial Park near CCU.

Additionally, in regard to the field of General Social Sciences, CCU has also achieved greatly. The research projects from the teams of CCU teachers that aimed at issues including the hegemony of digital technology and social justice crisis, and the sustainable intelligent cities, had successively won research subsidies from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) under the national programs titled the Humanities and Social Sciences Excellence Research Program and the AI Thematic Research Plan Responding to Major National Challenges, in the past few years. And more recently, the research funds from the Precision Health Interdisciplinary Promotion Grant has just been rewarded to CCU to carry out an industry-academia cooperation in the development and application of medical products for clinical research.

Dr. Hsiang-Chen Wang further mentioned that as CCU’s research publications in the Engineering and the General Social Sciences have both been categorized to the top 1% highly cited materials in ESI rankings this year, the two disciplines therefore have become the most dominant research fields in CCU. These highly cited papers are not only valued as the influential academic articles in the globe, they are also the proof to symbolize that CCU is a comprehensive university with equal strength on education, research, and industry-academia cooperation.