NSTC (National Science and Technology Council) refers to two entirely different government bodies, and it matters which one a researcher or research administrator is looking for. This page covers Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council (nstc.gov.tw), the cabinet-level agency that funds and coordinates scientific research across Taiwan. It is not the same organization as the U.S. National Science and Technology Council, a cabinet-level body within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) that coordinates U.S. federal science and technology policy but does not itself administer research grants to individual investigators. If you were looking for the U.S. body — for example, in the context of the OSTP-issued “Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded Research” checklist — see CASRAI’s guide to that document instead. Everything below concerns Taiwan’s NSTC.
What Taiwan’s NSTC Is
Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council is a ministry-level statutory agency under the Executive Yuan (Taiwan’s central executive branch) responsible for formulating national science and technology policy, allocating competitive research funding, coordinating science and technology efforts across government agencies, and promoting innovation in support of Taiwan’s economy and society. For a researcher or institution working with Taiwanese collaborators, NSTC is Taiwan’s rough counterpart to bodies such as the U.S. National Science Foundation, Germany’s DFG, or the UK’s UKRI: it runs competitive, peer-reviewed calls for proposals and funds selected projects for a defined term, rather than providing ongoing block funding to universities. Its official website, the authoritative source for current programs and deadlines, is nstc.gov.tw.
From National Science Council to NSTC: A Brief History
NSTC’s current form is the result of several reorganizations, and the name changes matter because older grant records, MOUs, and publications will reference the agency’s earlier names:
- 1959: Established as the National Council on Science Development.
- 1967: Renamed the National Science Council (NSC) — the name under which the agency operated for nearly five decades and the name most commonly found in older Taiwanese grant acknowledgments and publication funding statements.
- 3 February 2014: Reorganized and renamed the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), elevating the agency to full ministry status.
- 26 July 2022: Reorganized again, under the Act for the Adjustment of Functions and Organizations of the Executive Yuan, into the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) — its current name and structure.
Researchers reviewing a Taiwanese collaborator’s funding history, or checking acknowledgment language in an older paper, may see any of “NSC,” “MOST,” or “NSTC” depending on when the underlying grant was awarded; all three refer to the continuous lineage of the same national funding agency.
Organizational Role and Structure
As a ministry-level council reporting to the Executive Yuan, NSTC sits at the center of Taiwan’s public research funding system. Its responsibilities span three broad functions: (1) setting national science and technology policy and strategic priorities; (2) directly funding research through competitive grant programs open to researchers at Taiwanese universities, academic institutions, and research organizations; and (3) coordinating research and development activity across Taiwan’s other ministries and public research bodies, including Academia Sinica and the various government research institutes. This combined policy-and-funding role differs from jurisdictions that separate the two functions — NSTC is closer in that respect to a hybrid of a science ministry and a national research council.
Grant and Funding Programs
NSTC’s core funding instrument for individual and team-based research is the Research Project Grant program, organized by subject-matter department (natural sciences and sustainable development, engineering, life sciences, humanities and social sciences, and others), which supports investigator-initiated projects across disciplines on an annual application cycle. Beyond general research grants, NSTC administers additional program lines covering areas such as young-scholar and early-career researcher support, and larger strategic initiatives tied to national priorities (for example, semiconductor research and artificial intelligence). Researchers and research administrators working with a Taiwanese institution should treat the relevant departmental program page on nstc.gov.tw as the authoritative source for current eligibility, deadlines, and budget rules, since program structures and cycles are subject to annual revision.
International Cooperation Programs
A significant share of NSTC’s portfolio is bilateral and multilateral international collaboration funding, run jointly with counterpart funding agencies in other countries. NSTC maintains standing cooperation agreements and joint call mechanisms with a number of national funders, including examples such as Canada’s Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Austria’s FWF (Austrian Science Fund), Germany’s DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft), and India’s ICSSR (Indian Council of Social Science Research), among others. These typically take one of a few forms: jointly funded bilateral research projects (where each country’s funder pays the costs incurred by its own researchers), joint workshops and seminars, researcher and student exchange or internship schemes, and an “Add-on International Cooperation Research Project” mechanism that lets an existing NSTC-funded project add a formal international collaboration component. For a researcher assembling an international team, the practical implication is that funding usually is not requested from NSTC alone — each side of the collaboration applies to, and is funded by, its own national agency under a coordinated joint call.
Not to Be Confused With the U.S. NSTC
The acronym collision with the United States’ National Science and Technology Council is genuine and worth stating plainly. The U.S. NSTC is a White House-level body operating under the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), part of the Executive Office of the President; it coordinates science and technology policy across U.S. federal agencies (for example, its Subcommittee on Open Science issued the 2022 “Desirable Characteristics of Data Repositories for Federally Funded Research” document — see CASRAI’s separate guide on that checklist). The U.S. NSTC does not award research grants to individual investigators. Taiwan’s NSTC, by contrast, is a national funding agency that directly issues competitive research grants, comparable in that respect to NSF or NIH rather than to OSTP. The two organizations share an acronym and a general “coordinate science and technology policy” description, but they operate in different countries, sit in different parts of government, and serve different functions — one funds research directly, the other does not.
Why This Matters for Grants Administrators
For research administrators and investigators outside Taiwan, NSTC is most likely to come up in three contexts: (1) verifying or interpreting a funding acknowledgment on a paper co-authored with a Taiwanese researcher; (2) structuring a joint international grant application where a Taiwanese partner will seek matching or parallel funding from NSTC under a bilateral cooperation agreement; and (3) due diligence when a Taiwanese institution is named as a subrecipient or collaborator on a U.S.- or EU-funded award and its national funding-agency relationships need to be documented. In all three cases, confirming which era of the agency’s name applies (NSC, MOST, or NSTC) and pulling program details directly from nstc.gov.tw rather than from older cached descriptions will avoid citing an outdated program name or eligibility rule.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is NSTC Taiwan the same organization as the U.S. National Science and Technology Council?
No. They share an acronym only. Taiwan’s NSTC is a ministry-level government agency that directly funds research through competitive grants. The U.S. NSTC is a White House coordinating body under the Office of Science and Technology Policy that sets cross-agency policy and does not itself award research grants.
What was NSTC Taiwan called before 2022?
Immediately before its 26 July 2022 reorganization, it was the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), a name in use since 3 February 2014. Before that, from 1967 to 2014, it was the National Science Council (NSC), and before 1967 it was the National Council on Science Development, established in 1959.
Can international researchers apply directly to NSTC Taiwan for funding?
Most NSTC international funding runs through bilateral joint-call mechanisms with a partner country’s own funding agency, meaning a non-Taiwanese researcher typically applies through and is funded by their own national agency, while their Taiwanese collaborator applies to and is funded by NSTC. Program-specific eligibility for direct applications should be confirmed on nstc.gov.tw, since it varies by call and by NSTC’s cooperation agreement with the relevant country.
Does NSTC Taiwan fund all academic disciplines?
Yes. Its Research Project Grant program is organized across subject-matter departments spanning natural sciences and sustainable development, engineering and technology, life sciences, and humanities and social sciences, among others, rather than being limited to a single field.
Why do older papers cite “NSC” as the funder instead of “NSTC”?
Because the agency operated under the name National Science Council (NSC) from 1967 until its 2014 reorganization into the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), and only became NSTC in 2022. A funding acknowledgment naming “NSC” reflects the agency’s name at the time the underlying grant was awarded, not a different organization.
