An Overall Review on PhD Studies of College of Planning and Design （NCKU） in Taiwan

National Cheng Kung University was founded in 1931 by Japanese under the name of “Tainan School for Higher Industrial Education”. As time passed, the Department of Architecture was established in 1944 and then renamed as Department of Architectural Engineering in 1947. In 1971, it changed back to Department of Architecture, and at the same time, the Department of Urban Planning was established. The Department of Industrial Design was finally established in 1973. These three departments were the first undergraduate programs offered in Taiwan under the College of Engineering. In order to pursue the goal of leadership in academic research and professional practices, Master programs were offered in 1968 for architecture, 1987 for urban planning and then 1991 for industrial design. Starting from 1991 Ph.D. program was offered for advanced academic studies in architecture, and in 1994 for urban planning, 2000 for industrial design. On August 2003, the College of Planning and Design was established with three departments, Architecture, Urban Planning, and Industrial Design, which originated from the College of Engineering. In this paper, we try to review the Ph.D. studies in these three departments overall, mainly from the viewpoints of “demand V.S. supply”, “the time spent”, and “types of research topics”, so as to see the whole picture of Ph.D. studies of these three departments from the year they established their Ph.D. program in 1991, 1994 and 2000 respectively.