The National University of Kaohsiung is a newly founded university located in Nan-Tzu district, Kaohsiung city, Taiwan. The Department of Applied Chemistry, School of Science, was established in the year of 2001, one year after the university was founded. In fall of 2004, there will be approximately 180 full-time students enrolled in four classes. Currently, there are 10 full-time faculty members with excellent achievements in carrying out research projects, course teaching, and industrial experiences.

The purpose of the Department of Applied Chemistry is to support the increasing demands of the chemical related workforce of both the Taiwanese government's economical policies and the local industrial requirements. Following the successful interconnections between the companies in Hsinchu Science Park and its nearby universities, the Department of Applied Chemistry is aiming on establishing direct collaborations between the companies in both Southern Taiwan Science Park and the great Kaohsiung area. Since most of the companies in the Southern Taiwan Science Park are focusing on developing electronic, optoelectronics, and biotechnological products, they will require intensive involvement of a large amount of Chemists. As most of the “traditional” chemical industries (for example, petroleum, metallurgy, and plastics industries) in the great Kaohsiung area facing the need of transformation for increasing their competition in the 21 st century, it is important to have more Chemists in the research and development process. The academic curriculum design and research projects carried out in the Department of Applied Chemistry are focusing on: 1) training excellent Chemists for the industrial demands and 2) direct collaborations with industries and solving their problems. Therefore, the goals of the Department of Applied Chemistry is to establish closed connections between industries and applying the basic Chemistry knowledge to the industrial applications both in the manner of academic curriculum design and directly carrying out the industrial research projects.

In the past, most of the Chemistry related academic departments are focusing on teaching basic Chemistry knowledge and carrying out fundamental research projects. Also, the chemical industries in Taiwan tended to import the foreign “know-how” for the direct production usage. The lack of academic support had caused tremendous problems to the industries facing the heavily raised foreign competitions. Currently, as the Taiwanese companies facing the pressure of transformation, a strong research and development effort is required for building up their uniqueness. And this will require assistance of the academic community working on more “application oriented” research projects instead of focusing on the basic problems and staying in the “academic ivory tower”. Therefore, the Department of Applied Chemistry is targeting on developing “applied technologies” to the electronic, optoelectronic, and biotechnological industries. In order to achieve these objectives, the Department of Applied Chemistry centre on Synthetic Chemistry, Material Chemistry, and Environmental Analytic Chemistry.

Synthetic Chemistry: Synthesis of new chemical compounds and their applications, developing new special chemicals for organic and inorganic material.

Material Chemistry: Preparation and characterize nanomaterial and semiconductor material, preparation and applications of high efficient battery material, and research on catalytic material.

Currently, there are 10 full-time faculty members with extensive experiences in teaching and carrying our research projects in the area of Synthetic Chemistry, Material Chemistry, and Environmental Analytic Chemistry.

The design of the academic program including not only the basic training in Chemistry core courses but also the extensive elective courses targeting on Synthetic Chemistry, Material Chemistry, Environmental Analytical Chemistry, and General.

The National University of Kaohsiung is nearby the Southern Taiwan Science Park, which can be a perfectly suitable cradle for training the required working forces for the industrial demands. The design of academic curriculum and research topics carried out in the Department of Applied Chemistry are fitted for the requirements of the high-tech companies. Not only the fundamental Chemistry core courses are covered, extensive elective courses on the applications of Chemistry in electronic, optoelectronic, and biotechnology areas are emphasized. We believe by either choosing the focal points such as Synthetic Chemistry, Material Chemistry, and Environmental Analytical Chemistry, students are well prepared for the industries or academia in the future. Chemistry graduates are highly demanded in carrying out the research and development process or technology trend analysis in various types of industries, for example, cosmetics products, petroleum products, environmental protection section, semiconductor processing, information technology, material science, biochemistry, drug, food, and energy. The professional job functions of chemical related graduates are varied, including chemical researcher, chemical analyst, quality assurance engineer, environmental analyst, processing engineer, chemical engineer, patent analyst, industry analyst, teachers, and others.