European Asso­ci­a­tion of Taiwan Stud­ies (EATS)

In April 2010, the Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Taiwan Stud­ies was for­mally reg­is­tered as an inde­pen­dent asso­ci­a­tion accord­ing to German law.

History

The ori­gins of the Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Taiwan Stud­ies (EATS) lie in the award of a Chiang Ching Kuo Foun­da­tion Grant given to the School of Ori­en­tal and African Stud­ies (SOAS) to facil­i­tate the estab­lish­ment of a European-​based aca­d­e­mic net­work of Taiwan Stud­ies. The grant was designed to foster a com­mu­nity of inter­est among spe­cial­ists on Taiwan work­ing in Euro­pean uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tu­tions on Taiwan-​related topics in areas of the social sci­ences, human­i­ties, lan­guage and cul­ture.
During the last few years, the Asso­ci­a­tion has grown rapidly to become one of the largest and most active aca­d­e­mic forums for Taiwan Stud­ies any­where in the world. The cen­tral method that EATS employs for pro­mot­ing Euro­pean Taiwan stud­ies is the orga­niz­ing of the annual Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Taiwan Stud­ies Con­fer­ence. Seven Annual Con­fer­ences have already taken place – in 2004 (London, UK), 2005 (Bochum, Ger­many), 2006 (Paris, France), 2007 (Stock­holm, Sweden), 2008 (Prague, Czech Repub­lic), 2009 (Madrid Spain) and 2010 (Tübingen, Ger­many). In 2011, the annual con­fer­ence will take place in Ljubl­jana, Slovenia.

Aims and Objectives of EATS

The Euro­pean Asso­ci­a­tion of Taiwan Stud­ies is devoted to the pro­mo­tion of Taiwan Stud­ies and Research in Europe. The Asso­ci­a­tion seeks to foster a com­mu­nity of inter­est among schol­ars and researchers based in Euro­pean coun­tries in order to facil­i­tate aca­d­e­mic inter­ac­tion and sci­en­tific col­lab­o­ra­tion.
The aims and objec­tives of the Asso­ci­a­tion are solely and exclu­sively edu­ca­tional. Its aca­d­e­mic scope includes inter alia the arts, human­i­ties, law, lan­guages, cul­tural stud­ies and social sci­ences.
The Asso­ci­a­tion pur­sues solely and directly objects of public inter­est in accor­dance with respec­tive tax law def­i­n­i­tions of objec­tives eli­gi­ble for pref­er­en­tial tax treat­ment. The objec­tives of the con­sti­tu­tion will be achieved through the fol­low­ing activities:

• facil­i­tat­ing net­work­ing and increased col­lab­o­ra­tion between stu­dents and schol­ars con­duct­ing research and teach­ing in Taiwan Studies,
• encour­ag­ing the study of Taiwan in edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions through­out Europe,
• orga­ni­za­tion of the annual or bian­nual EATS con­fer­ence and smaller work­shops or sem­i­nars in the field of Taiwan studies,
• sup­port of young schol­ars in Europe, for exam­ple through the orga­ni­za­tion of PhD work­shops or through the dona­tion of grants for a lim­ited period of time; the respec­tive research results will be made pub­licly available,
• pub­li­ca­tion projects involv­ing research pre­sented at the EATS events or other pub­li­ca­tions in the field of Taiwan stud­ies, espe­cially pub­li­ca­tions of aca­d­e­mic research results, ? main­te­nance of a web­site includ­ing a spe­cific area for mem­bers (pub­li­ca­tions, infor­ma­tion, forum),
• where it will help to achieve its objec­tives, the Asso­ci­a­tion shall develop rela­tion­ships with other organizations,
• Activ­i­ties may come to include involve­ment in exhi­bi­tions, lec­tures, and improv­ing social con­tacts to the aca­d­e­mic ben­e­fit of the Association.

Administration

The Exec­u­tive Board, elected at the 2010 Gen­eral Assem­bly in Tübingen, includes seven mem­bers, includ­ing a Sec­re­tary Gen­eral and a Trea­surer (See HYPER­LINK ABOUT US). The term of office of each Board member is two years.
The respon­si­bil­i­ties include

• plan­ning and run­ning the EATS annual con­fer­ence and the oper­a­tion of EATS between conferences,
• invi­ta­tion for the Gen­eral Assembly ,
• imple­men­ta­tion of the deci­sions of the Gen­eral Assembly ,
• com­pi­la­tion of a report on the Association’s activ­i­ties since the last Gen­eral Assem­bly to be sub­mit­ted to the Gen­eral Assem­bly and pub­lished on the website.
• deci­sions about the exclu­sion of members.
• The prepa­ra­tion of an annual or bi-​annual budget plan

Constitution

a) The orig­i­nal text in German (since EATS is cur­rently under­go­ing reg­is­tra­tion as a non-​profit organ­sa­tion (“Gemeinnütziger Verein”) in Ger­many, and accord­ing to German law the con­sti­tu­tion (“Satzung”) has to be in German.
b) The legally non-​binding trans­la­tion in English.