Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica

Yu-Shan Wu is an Academician of the Academia Sinica. He joined the IPSAS in 2002 as one of the founding members. He served as the Inaugural Director of the Institute from 2002 to 2015. He is now a Distinguished Research Fellow at IPSAS, and a Jointly Appointed Professor at the Political Science Department of National Taiwan University (NTU). He holds the Inaugural Lo Chia-Lun Chair Professorship at National Central University, and he is also Chair Professor at National Tsinghua University, National Chengchi University and National Sun Yat-sen University. He served as Convener of Political Science at the National Science Council (NSC), Secretary General of the Chinese Association of Political Science (CAPS), and President of the CAPS.

Among the many academic awards he received are the Harold D. Lasswell Award for the best doctoral dissertation by the American Political Science Association, Distinguished Researcher Award (NSC), Lifetime Academic Award (Ministry of Education), Outstanding Research Award (NSC, three-time recipient), Outstanding Research Project Award (NSC, two-time recipient), and Distinguished Teaching Award (NTU, inaugural and two-time recipient).

His major interests are in political and economic transitions in former socialist countries, democratic consolidation and constitutional engineering in nascent democracies, and theories of international relations and Cross-Taiwan Strait relations. His area focuses are Taiwan, mainland China, Eastern Europe and Russia. He has led semi-presidential studies and the theorization of cross-Strait relations in Taiwan. Recently he has been introducing and leading the study of History and International Relations that breaks the disciplinary boundaries between humanities and social sciences. He has authored and edited 25 books and published more than 160 journal articles and book chapters.