National Center for Theoretical Sciences in Taiwan was established on August 1, 1997 fully funded by the National Science Council, which is reorganized and became Ministry of Science and Technology on 2014. It is a national research center with the goal to contribute to the advancement of frontier research, and to promote interdisciplinary and international research cooperation in theoretical sciences. NCTS was set up with a center in Theoretical Physics and one in Mathematics. For the first 18 years, NCTS was located on the campus of the National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu. Since 2015, NCTS Mathematics has been relocated to the National Taiwan University, Taipei. NCTS Physics and NCTS Mathematics operate mostly independently to serve their separate communities and cooperate on some of their national programs and strategies. Tung-Mow Yan was the founder director of NCTS. Previous directors of the Physics division were: Tung-Maw Yan, Ting-Kuo Lee, Darwin Chang, Tu-Nan Chang, Hsiang-Nan Li, Chung-Yu Mou, Ling-Fong Li and Xiao-Gang He. Current director is Chong-Sun Chu.
Mission
NCTS Physics aims to act as a national multidisciplinary facility and platform envision to contribute to the advancement of frontier research in physics. Its academic programs and activities are operated with the goals: to act as an effective platform to stimulate and to enhance the interaction and collaboration among researchers; to empower talented students and postdoctoral researchers to make significant contributions in the frontier of research subjects; to serve as an efficacious channel to network the home researchers with other scholars and preeminent institutions abroad; and to explore new frontiers in physics research and innovation, and to enhance the extent and breadth of interdisciplinary researches as well as the collaboration with scientists in the experimental fields.
NCTS operates a number of academic programs in order to engage researchers in creative scientific activities. Interdisciplinary interactions are encouraged. Programs include the NCTS Topic Programs whose purpose is to encourage collaboration and to foster the generation of new ideas and initiatives for breakthrough; Rapid Response Workshop whose purpose is to respond actively and quickly to any sudden development of the field which has a significant potential of impact; NCTS Distinguished Lecturer whose objective is to bring distinguished scholars to NCTS to give a lecture or lecture series on a specific topic of research or a topic of general interest. In addition, we have an active visitor program with both international and domestic scientists. NCTS scientists are also involved in advancing a number of Thematic Research, Interdisciplinary Research and Experimental Collaboration Group: these are focused research groups formed by a team of active home researchers with complementary expertise, with the primary goal of solving some of the outstanding problems of the subject, or to engage in rigorous interaction in order to foster collaboration across conventional boundaries and traditionally defined disciplines. These groups have been the breeding ground for a number of young brilliant PhD students and postdoctoral researchers who have gone on for a successful career in physics.
