National Dong Hwa University (; NDHU) is a public research university in Hualien, Taiwan.

The university is organized into eight colleges, 44 academic departments, and 56 graduate institutes, enrolling around 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students, including over 1,000 international students.

NDHU is a member of six Taiwan's European Union Centre, a Think Tank for European Studies. With Taiwan's oldest school for Indigenous Studies, NDHU College of Indigenous Studies is among the leading institutes of its kind in Asia.

NDHU has Taiwan's fifth highest endowment among national universities and NDHU Library holds more than two million volumes and is eighth largest academic library in Taiwan. The university's main campus is located in Shoufeng, in the northern half of Hualien County. Encompassing an area of , the main campus houses almost all colleges and research institutes except the Graduate Institute of Marine Biology, which is jointly founded in National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium.

History Foundation National Dong Hwa University was established in 1994 in Shoufeng. It was the first university in Taiwan founded after the Martial law period (1949–1987). Mu Tzung-Tsann, the vice-chancellor of California State University, Los Angeles, served as the university's first president. He resigned from his vice-chancellorship and relinquished his green card in order to oversee the university's planning, during which he consulted the senior executives of multiple U.S. universities. Alan Kreditor, vice president of the University of Southern California, was among those who advised the university's planning.

National Hualien University of Education (1947–2008) The National Hualien University of Education (Commonly known as Hua-Shih; ) was one of Taiwan's oldest normal schools. It was established in 1947 in Hualien City as the Taiwan Provincial Hualien Normal School (TPHNS) as part of the country's reconstruction and development after World War II.

In 2008, with financial support from the Ministry of Education, National Dong Hwa University merged with the National Hualien University of Education.

Present In 2018, Chao Han-Chieh, a fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the British Computer Society, became the university's fourth president. Campuses

Shoufeng

NDHU's main campus, Shoufeng Campus, is situated in the rural town of Shoufeng, Hualien. It is located in Papaya Creek in East Rift Valley, surrounded by a mountain range, about south of Taroko National Park, south of Hualien City.

NDHU's campus is the largest flat-land university campus in Taiwan. The campus was designed in a postmodern style by architect Charles Moore, the dean of the Yale School of Architecture.

The Shoufeng campus's academic buildings—including the campus library, art museum, concert hall, and arts workshop—are located at the center of campus. The NDHU Concert Hall, a part of the College of The Arts, is the largest performing arts hall in eastern Taiwan. Adjacent to the academic buildings section are two student dormitories and campus athletics facilities, including a stadium, swimming pools, athletic field, baseball field, basketball court, tennis court, volleyball court, kayak, and facilities for Project Adventure.

In 2016, NDHU ran a solar university project, constructing the first batch of rooftop photovoltaic solar panels. As of 2021, the solar energy covers 40% of NDHU's annual electric usage.

Meilun The Meilun campus was the main campus of National Hualien University of Education before it was merged with NDHU. The campus is located in Meilun District of Hualien City, near Qixingtan Beach. In 2020, NDHU collaborated with Lee Yuen-Cheng, founder of Boston International Experimental Education Institution and an alumnus of NDHU, to establish the first international school on campus: Hualien International School.

Pingtung The Graduate Institute of Marine Biology is based at the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium (NMMBA) in Chechung Township in Pingtung County, standing in Kenting National Park and facing the Taiwan Strait in the west. It houses the National Museum of Marine Biology.

Organization and administration

NDHU has over 10,000 students and confers undergraduate, master's and doctoral degrees in multiple fields. The university is organized into 39 departments, 56 graduate institutes, 8 colleges, and over 70 research centers. Academic organizations Faculties and schools Founded College of Humanities and Social Sciences College of Science and Engineering School of Management College of Indigenous Studies Hua-Shih College of Education College of The Arts College of Environmental Studies and Oceanography College of Huilan NDHU is organized into seven academic colleges and one undergraduate college: College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS), College of Science and Engineering (CSAE), School of Management (SOM), Hua-Shih College of Education (HSCE), College of The Arts (ARTS), College of Indigenous Studies (CIS), College of Environmental Studies and Oceanography (CESO), and College of Huilan (CHL).

Within these colleges are "departments" and "graduate institutes", which either represent one academic discipline such as Computer Science, or assemble adjacent academic disciplines such as the Department of Tourism, Recreation, and Leisure Studies.

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

The NDHU College of Humanities and Social Sciences was founded by Yang Mu, a professor at the University of Washington and the founding dean of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The college offers four doctoral programs: a PhD in teaching Chinese as a second language (TCASL), a PhD in Asia-Pacific regional studies (APRS), a PhD in economics, and a PhD in Chinese literature.

College of Science and Engineering

The NDHU College of Science and Engineering was founded by Hsia Yu-Ping, a chair professor at the California Institute of Technology and Yale University.

The college has 8 departments: Applied Mathematics (AM), Physics (PHYS), Chemistry (CHEM), Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine (BMM), Electrical Engineering (EE), Computer Science and Information Engineering (CSIE), Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), and Opto-Electronic Engineering (OEE). The college has more than 40 undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral degree programs.

School of Management

The NDHU School of Management was founded as the Graduate Institute of Business Administration in 1994. It has six academic departments—Business Administration, International Business, Finance, Accounting, Information Management, Logistics Management—and a graduate institute of Tourism, Recreation, and Leisure Studies (TRLS). The college offers degree programs– undergraduate, MBA, MIM, EMBA, MSc, PhD, and dual degree with oversea partner universities.

Hua-Shih College of Education The Hua-Shih College of Education traces its roots back to the Taiwan Provincial Hualien Normal School established in 1947. The school's PhD program has the second-most Indonesian graduates among all the programs in Taiwan and was the first institution in Taiwan to offer MEd and PhD degrees in multicultural education. The college become one of eight colleges at NDHU in 2008. It currently offers over 20 programs, including BEd, MEd, MSc, and PhD degrees in Curriculum and Instruction, Early Childhood Education, Educational Administration, Special Education, Physical Education and Kinesiology, Multicultural Education, and Science Education.

College of The Arts

NDHU College of The Arts (; ARTS) is the first art school to be established in Eastern Taiwan, which is organized into three departments — Music, Arts and Design, Arts and Creative Industry.

The college offers over 15 programs, including B.A., B.F.A., M.A., M.F.A., into Creative Design, Studio Art, Indigenous Art, Visual Art Education, Creative Industry Management, and Taiwan's 1st PhD in Interdisciplinary Arts. NDHU ARTS also offer Bachelor of Music and Master of Music into nine majors — Piano, Vocal Music, Choral Conducting, Violin, Viola/Cello, Flute/Clarinet, Percussion, and Taiwan's 1st Jazz & Jazz Vocal majors.

In 2025, QS World University Ranking ranked NDHU College of The Arts 201-260th in the world (4th in Taiwan) for Art & Design, holding the same statue with KU Leuven, University of Barcelona, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

College of Indigenous Studies

NDHU College of Indigenous Studies (; CIS) was first in Taiwan and most renowned institution for Indigenous Studies in Asia. Established in 2001, NDHU CIS traced its roots back to Graduate Institute of Ethnic Relations and Cultures in 1995, which was founded by Chiao Chien, Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University Bloomington and Founding Chair of Anthropology at Chinese University of Hong Kong.

NDHU CIS was the first institution in Taiwan to grant degree in Ethnic Relations and Cultures (ERC), Indigenous Arts, Indigenous Development, Indigenous Affair, Indigenous Social Work (ISW), and Indigenous Language and Communication (ILC), which offering over 10 programs- B.A., B.S.S., B.S.W., B.I.A., M.S.S, M.S.W. Ph.D. in these disciplines. The International Ph.D. in Indigenous Studies was established in 2023 for overseas students who seek to discover knowledge and culture of Taiwanese indigenous peoples.

College of Environmental Studies and Oceanography

NDHU College of Environmental Studies and Oceanography (; CESO) was established in 2022 through the merger of College of Environmental Studies (CES) and College of Marine Sciences (CMS) to serve purpose of interdisciplinary trends of sustainability studies. The College of Environmental Studies (CES) was established in 2009 by merging five graduate institutes — Natural Resources and Management, Environmental Policy, Ecological and Environmental Education, Earth Science, and Biological Resources and Technology into a school of Environmental Studies. The College of Marine Sciences formerly was a graduate school at NDHU that was founded in 2005 as an academic collaboration with National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium (NMMBA) in Kenting National Park, which set the first record on academic collaboration between higher education and museum in Taiwan.

NDHU CESO emphasize on interdisciplinary collaborative approach in solving environmental and marine issues with its two department and graduate institute — Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (NRES) and Graduate Institute of Marine Biology (IMB), and five research centers – Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Ecology and Sustainability (CIRES), Center for Disaster Prevention Research (CDPR), Environmental Education Center (EEC), Campus Center for the Environment (CCE), and Eastern Taiwan Earthquake Research Center (ETERC).

The college offers seven programs — BSc, MSc, PhD in Natural Resources and Environmental Studies (NRES), MSc in Marine Biotechnology, MSc in Marine Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, and PhD in Marine Biology. NDHU CESO with College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHASS) and College of Indigenous Studies (CIS) to offer MSc program in Humanity and Environmental Science (HES), the first in Taiwan.

Affiliated schools National Dong Hwa University Experimental Primary School National Dong Hwa University Experimental Primary School Affiliated Kindergarten Affiliated Preschool of National Dong Hwa University

Academics Research