Is there any feedback you would like to share about ISR?
ISR is a highly valuable framework because it encourages universities to demonstrate not only disciplinary excellence, but also how research crosses academic, methodological, and real-world boundaries. For institutions such as Tzu Chi University, where universities, hospitals, data platforms, animal facilities, and community-facing research sites are closely linked, ISR is especially helpful in recognizing translational, collaborative, and socially engaged science.
We would, however, welcome clearer guidance on several points. First, it would be helpful to distinguish more explicitly among multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and translational research. Second, clearer guidance would be beneficial on how shared university-hospital facilities, joint appointments, and co-managed research platforms should be counted. Third, for small and medium-sized universities, interdisciplinary support is often distributed across several offices and centers rather than concentrated in a single ISR-labeled unit; a more flexible interpretation of institutional evidence would therefore support fairer assessment.
6.1 Commendation for the 2026 Disciplinary Scope Expansion
TCU strongly commends THE’s decision to expand the ISR 2026 definition of interdisciplinary science to encompass research combining scientific disciplines with social sciences, education, psychology, law, economics, and clinical and health sciences. This methodological development significantly improves the ranking’s validity for institutions — such as TCU — whose interdisciplinary research is characterised by deep, systematic integration of biomedical sciences with humanistic and social scientific frameworks, rather than exclusively intra-STEM cross-disciplinary collaboration.
6.2 Invitation to Recognise Medically Integrated Humanistic Research Models
TCU has developed what is internationally recognised as a distinctive model of humanistic medicine — one in which clinical science, anatomy education, and medical ethics are systematically integrated through the Silent Mentor programme (大體老師). This programme, which involves the dignified use of donated cadavers in structured humanistic ceremonies, has been studied and adapted by delegations from Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and numerous Asian research universities. TCU respectfully suggests that the ISR framework might benefit from developing specific indicators capable of distinguishing and valuing this depth of science-humanities integration, which constitutes a form of interdisciplinary research that current bibliometric metrics may systematically undercount.
6.3 Equity in Metrics for Research-Intensive Small Institutions
TCU notes that several ISR output metrics are sensitive to absolute publication volume. As an institution with an exceptionally low faculty-to-student ratio of 1:5 — one of the lowest in Taiwan’s university sector — TCU’s per-institution publication totals are structurally constrained relative to larger comprehensive research universities, even where per-faculty research quality and impact (as measured by IF scores and citation indices) is demonstrably high. TCU recommends that THE consider supplementing absolute volume metrics with normalised per-researcher interdisciplinary research productivity indicators, which would more accurately reflect excellence at smaller, high-quality institutions.
6.4 Request for Temporal Flexibility in Data Reporting
The ISR 2026 data collection is based on institutional information from the reference year 2023. TCU’s merger with Tzu Chi University of Science and Technology in August 2024, and the establishment of two new academic departments in the same year, represent structural changes with direct implications for the institution’s interdisciplinary research capacity. TCU respectfully requests that THE consider whether supplementary mechanisms — such as contextual annexes or a rolling re-evaluation provision — might be introduced to allow institutions to document transformative structural changes that occur between data reference years and the ranking’s publication date.
