Founded in 1963, National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences (KUAS) was originally known as the Provincial Kaohsiung Institute of Technology with the aim to educate technical professionals to meet the demands of national economic development.In 2000, the beginning of the new millennium, the Institute evolved to be a four-year technical university and the present name was adopted. This transformation from a junior college to a technological university has opened up a new page for KUAS. After more than a decade of development and expansion, now KUAS has reinvented itself as the leading technological university in southern Taiwan.

Currently, KUAS has four colleges offering top-quality undergraduate and graduate programs, serving more than 13,000 students and 100,000 alumni. The achievements of KUAS in teaching, research, and industry-academia collaboration have been highly recognized by the government. In 2012, KUAS received the grant for the “Plan for Developing Technological University Paradigms” awarded by the Ministry of Education (MOE). In addition, more than 10 research centers have been established on KUAS campus by the MOE and the Ministry of Economic Affairs, engaging in state-of-the-art research in a variety of fields. In recent years, over 500 industry-academia collaboration contracts worth more than NT$300 millions have been signed between KUAS and the leading businesses and companies in Taiwan.

To meet the demands of globalized education, KUAS has been active in establishing international ties with institutions around the world in recent years. The university has signed MOUs with 123 partnering institutions in 13 countries to develop joint degree programs, student exchange programs and research collaboration. The partnerships will sure bring new opportunities and enable KUAS to become a truly internationalized university.