Researching Higher Education in Asia History, Development and Future

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has been a major driving force in Taiwan to differentiate the higher education com-
munity from the larger educational studies.
With an expanded, differentiated, and diverse higher education sector, Taiwan
indeed has faced a wide range of challenges and issues at the national and institu-
tional levels. Higher education research community in Taiwan, as demonstrated ear-
lier, initially concentrated on instrumental or management-oriented functions (see
the second layer of Fig. 11.3) to meet the needs of rapid systematic transformation
and restructuring nationwide. In other words, the research emphasis on the national
policies, management, and governance, as previously revealed, was directly affected
by the process of massification as well because the expanded and more complicated
higher education sector required better management, good governance, and novel
initiatives and policies to achieve new social and economic objectives. Further mas-
sification and the management-oriented research reinforce each other and constitute
an interlinked cycle. The recent establishment of Taiwan Institutional Research
Association in 2016, aiming to use big data and information to facilitate institutional
decision-making and management, further confirms such dynamic relationship.
The maturity of higher education research community is mainly composed of
specialized associations, journals, expanding research themes, and degree programs
at universities. The third layer of Fig. 11.3 has demonstrated some signs of these
elements. We have seen the establishment of professional organizations and their
corresponding research arms, such as academic journals and the research and devel-
opment office of the HEEAC.  The development of the research production and
knowledge application has grown increasingly mature during the past two decades.

Massificationof

Higher education

Higher education

Research

Community

Organizations

and Journals

Growingly

mature

Research themes

and Methods

Increasingly

diverse and

balanced

Degree Program

at University

Constrained

transition to

labourmarket

Management-

oriented

Development

Fig. 11.3 Evolution and characteristics of a higher education research community

S.-J. Chan and T.-M. Huang