J Michael Cole

jmcole@iri.org

Expertise keywords: PRC, Taiwan, cross-Strait relations, sharp power, political warfare, PLA, democracy 

Affiliation to the hub: Senior (non-resident) Fellow 

Biography

J. Michael Cole is a Taipei-based Senior Advisor on Countering Foreign Authoritarian Influence (CFAI) with the International Republican Institute (IRI), Research Fellow and Executive Editor at the Prospect Foundation (Taiwan), Senior Fellow with the Global Taiwan Institute (GTI) in Washington, D.C., and Senior Fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) in Ottawa, Canada.

J. Michael holds a masters degree in war studies from the Royal Military College of Canada and is a former intelligence officer with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in Ottawa. Between 2014-2016, he was employed by the Thinking Taiwan Foundation, a think tank founded by Tsai Ing-wen. He was chief editor of Taiwan Sentinel (2018-2020) and a deputy news editor at the Taipei Times (2010-13). 

Most recent books

• Insidious Power: How China Undermines Global Democracy (co-edited with Hsu Szu-chien, Eastbridge, 2020)
• Cross-Strait Relations Since 2016: The End of the Illusion (Routledge, 2020)

Most recent commentaries

• "All eyes on Taiwan: Preserving a hard-won liberty, the 2024 elections and beyond" (MLI, May 2023)
• "Macron’s faux pas and Beijing’s trap" (Globe and Mail, April 2023)
• "China Hasn’t Given Up on the Belt and Road" (with Matt Schrader) (Foreign Affairs, February 2023)
• "Veteran Chinese Official Song Tao Assumes the Taiwan Portfolio" (GTI, January 2023)
• "Engaging Taiwan is in Canada’s national interest" (Globe and Mail, October 2022)
• "The Lesson of Pelosi’s Trip: Don’t Be Afraid of Engaging Taiwan" (with Dan Twining) (National Review, August 2022)

Dr Min-Hua Chiang

minhua628@yahoo.com.tw

Expertise keywords: International political economy, economic development, regional economic integration, trade and investment, issues related to economic growth and development in Taiwan and East Asia

Affiliation to the hub: Non-resident

Biography

Min-Hua Chiang was a research fellow and economist at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. and a senior research fellow at the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore. She previously held research positions at the Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, Taiwan External Trade Development Council and the Commerce Development Research Institute in Taipei. 

She received both her Diplôme d’études approfondies  (DEA) and PhD in economics from Université Pierre Mendès-France, now part of Université Grenoble Alpes (avec la mention: Très honorable avec félicitations du jury) and her masters in international business economics degree from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. 

Most recent books

Min-Hua has written three single-authored books, including:

• Post-Industrial Development in East Asia: Taiwan and South Korea in Comparison (Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore, 2018)
• Contemporary South Korean Economy: Challenges and Prospects (World Scientific, Singapore 2017)
• China-Taiwan Rapprochement: The Political Economy of Cross-Strait Relations (Routledge, London 2016)

She is also the editor of The Political Economy of North Korea: Domestic, Regional, and Global Dynamics (Lynne Rienner Publishers, Boulder, Co, USA, 2022). 

Commentaries (after 2022)

1. “The Mate 60 Pro Proves American Export Bans Are Working”, Hudson Institute, China center, Sep 15, 2023
2. “Taiwan’s Graying Economy Challenges its Growth Prospects”, Global Taiwan Brief, Vol.8, Issue 16., August 23, 2023
3. “Taiwan’s Gloomy Economy Adds Uncertainty to Prospects for the 2024 Presidential Election”, Global Taiwan Brief, Vol. 8, Issue 15, August 9, 2023
4. “China’s application to join CPTPP comes to the fore, after the UK’s entry”, Thank China, July 20, 2023
5. “Geopolitical concerns propel-US-Taiwan economic ties”, East Asia Forum, April 8, 2023

Brian Hioe

brianhioe@protonmail.com

Expertise keywords: Social movements, electoral politics, cultural production

Affiliation to the hub: Non-resident fellow

Biography

Brian Hioe (丘琦欣) is one of the founders of New Bloom Magazine (破土), an online magazine covering activism and youth politics in Taiwan and the Asia Pacific that was founded after the Sunflower Movement. Hioe’s writing has been published in The Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian, Dissent Magazine, and other publications. Television and radio appearances by Hioe have included on Al-Jazeera, the BBC World Service, Channel NewsAsia, Democracy Now, and others. 

From 2017 to 2018, Hioe was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, during which he assembled the Daybreak Project, a 400,000-word oral history archive and encyclopedia of the Sunflower Movement. He is also a freelance journalist and translator. 

Commentaries 

• "Review: ‘She’s Talking in Island’ Depicts A Roving Dialog Between Taiwan’s Sunflower Generation and Gen Z", Cinema Escapist, September 22, 2023
• "My country is not just a geopolitical chess piece. It’s in the line of fire," Sydney Morning Herald, September 18, 2023
• "Review: Recently Restored Taiwanese Film ‘Teenage Fugitive’ Peeks Back at Tsai Ming-liang’s Earlier Output," Cinema Escapist, September 17, 2023
• "What Was Taiwan’s President Doing in Eswatini?", The Diplomat, September 15, 2023
• "Back to the Age of Political Strongmen," Popula, September 7, 2023
• "Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an Travels to Shanghai for Twin City Forum," The Diplomat, September 5, 2023

Dr Don S. Lee

don.lee@g.skku.edu

Expertise keywords: comparative politics, political institutions, political behavior, Taiwan and Asian politics, public policy and administration, experimental and quantitative research

Affiliation to the hub: Non-resident fellow, formerly a postdoctoral fellow at the hub and held a position at the assistant professor level at the University of Nottingham

Biography

Don S. Lee is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Governance and the Department of Public Administration at Sungkyunkwan University. Formerly, he was a Leverhulme Trust fellow and an assistant professor in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. He received a PhD in political science from the University of California, San Diego.

His research is forthcoming or has been published in Oxford University Press (a monograph titled "The President's Dilemma in Asia") and peer-reviewed academic journals, including Comparative Political Studies, Governance, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Party Politics, and among others.

Most recent book

"The President's Dilemma in Asia" (forthcoming in Oxford University Press)

Commentaries

Don S. Lee is available for commentaries about domestic politics in Taiwan and East and Southeast Asia. His work has been introduced in the Washington Post and mentioned in the Economist. He has also been interviewed for a commentary by TIME. His personal website is sites.google.com/view/donslee

Dr Bonny Ling

bonny.ling@protonmail.com

Expertise keywords: Human rights, international development, labour rights, migration, business responsibilities, diplomacy, United Nations, Asia Pacific

Affiliation to the hub: Senior Non-resident Fellow

Biography

Dr Bonny Ling is the Executive Director of Work Better Innovations, an international social enterprise working on new ideas for a responsible economy; and Senior Non-resident Fellow with the University of Nottingham Taiwan Research Hub. She is also a Research Fellow at the international think-tank, Institute for Human Rights and Business; a Global Taiwan Institute Scholar (2023) and Visiting Assistant Professor at the School of Law, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, where she teaches a postgraduate course on business and human rights.

Bonny holds a PhD in law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, an MPhil in criminology from University of Cambridge and an MA in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School. Bonny served as a Human Rights Officer for the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as an international election observer for the OSCE in Eastern Europe. 

Most recent books

Bonny’s book contributions have straddled the past and the present of labour exploitation and migration in the East Asian context. Her next book project is a co-authored chapter with Mariko Hayashi, titled "“Refugee Protection in Japan and Taiwan: Common Challenges and Ways Forward for Human Security” in a book on refugees in East Asia (eds Lara Momesso and Polina Ivanova) to come out with Palgrave Macmillan Studies on Human Rights in Asia in 2024.

This follows Bonny’s book chapter in 2021 on “The Abolition of Slavery, Constitutional Reforms, and Modernity in Late-Qing China,” in Slavery and Forced Labor in Asia, 1250-1900, edited by Richard B. Allen and in Brill’s Studies in Global Slavery, where she examined the move by the Late Qing imperial government to abolish slavery in China, a year before the fall of the Qing Dynasty that gave rise to Republican China and its subsequent engagement with the international system. 

Commentaries

Bonny frequently writes on human rights, migration, business responsibilities, and international development for the CommonWealth Magazine, Ketagalan Media, New Bloom, Taipei Times, Taiwan Insight, and The News Lens. Below is a selection of the most recent commentaries, as well as some academic peer reviewed articles: 

• National Action Plans on Business and Human Rights and Protecting Displaced Populations through Human Rights Due Diligence: Recommendations for Taiwan, Innovation in the Social Sciences (Brill 2023 – in print).
• “Let Involuntariness Ring in Taiwan’s Labour Law,” Ketagalan Media, 16 June 2023.
• Reform Taiwan’s Labor Laws to Better Prevent Forced Labor, Global Taiwan Brief, Vol. 8, Issue 12 (14 June 2023).  
• “A Glimpse of Our Stressed Climate Future,” Ketagalan Media, 16 July 2022, reprinted at Commonwealth Magazine,  “A glimpse of our stressed climate future,” 22 July 2022.
• “Taiwan’s Semiconductor Production in Japan is Significant for Business and Human Rights in Taiwan,” Ketagalan Media, 11 May 2022, reprinted at Commonwealth Magazine,  “TSMC in Japan is significant for business and human rights in Taiwan,” 23 May 2022.

Dr Chen-Yu Lin

linc37@cardiff.ac.uk

Expertise keywords: Popular Music, Creative Industries, Music Censorship

Affiliation to the hub: Non-resident

Biography

Chen-Yu Lin is a lecturer in School of Journalism, Media and Culture in Cardiff University. She is a popular music researcher. Her research, writing, and teaching have centred on transnational consumption of popular music, music censorship, and the ways practices of creative industries influence people's cultural and political experiences. They also have a focus on interdisciplinary approaches, such as filmmaking and mapping.

Chen-Yu is currently exploring themes including cultural diplomacy and exports, censorship in the Sinophone world, and local and global music industries from comparative perspectives. She has been directing and producing research documentary films for research projects she worked on, and she been shortlisted for AHRC Research in Film Awards (RIFA) for the following films— Chasing the China Wind: A Musical Journey (2016), George Harrison: The Story of the Beatles and Indian Musicians Performance Teaser (2017), and Go Ahead Remix! (2021).

Professor Benjamin Penny

benjamin.penny@anu.edu.au

Biography

Professor Benjamin Penny is Head of the Taiwan Studies Program at the Australian National University. His current research focusses on Taiwanese religions and issues of politics and identity. He is involved in a long-term project studying the new religion Weixin shengjiao 唯心聖教, The Sacred Teachings of the Heart, who have their main temple, the Xianfo si 仙佛寺and their Eight Trigrams City 八卦城 in Nantou county. His translation of their primary revealed scripture The Heavenly Virtue Scripture of Immortal Master Guigu 鬼谷仙師天德經was published in 2021.

He is also doing research on the interactions of electoral politics and Mazu 媽祖veneration.

Benjamin teaches two courses annually on Taiwan: “Society and Politics of Taiwan” (undergraduate), and “Contemporary Taiwan and its Histories” (postgraduate). He also coordinates (but does not teach) an annual intensive introductory course on Taiwanese language 臺語.

Dr David O'Brien

david.obrien@uj.edu.pl

Expertise keywords: Ethnicity; Xinjiang; Uyghur; Identity 

Biography

Dr David O’Brien is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Centre for International Studies and Development, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He was formerly at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany at the Chinese campus of Nottingham University. His work explores ethnic identity and ethnic policy in the People’s Republic of China and Taiwan.

His research has appeared in China Quarterly, International Politics, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, Asian Ethnicity, among others. Hi is co-author with Melissa Shani Brown of People, Place, Race, and Nation in Xinjiang, China: Territories of Identity. Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. He is also a frequent contributor to international media and has appeared in Financial Times, Reuters, Washington Post, AP, Deutsch Welle, Irish Times, RTE Radio and Television (Irish national broadcaster), Global and Mail, El Mercurio (paper of record in Chile), Helsingin Sanomat (paper of record in Finland).

Dr Michael Reilly

michael.reilly@nottingham.ac.uk

Expertise keywords: East Asian security, Taiwan-Europe relations, Taiwan railway history, British policy towards East Asia

Affiliation to the hub: Michael has been a non-resident Senior Fellow, first of the China Policy Institute, then the Taiwan Studies Programme, at Nottingham since 2015.

Biography

Michael is a former British diplomat with extensive experience in East Asia including postings in Korea (twice) and the Philippines. His final position was as the British representative in Taiwan from 2005 – 2009. He then left the foreign service to join BAE Systems, serving as the company’s chief representative in China from 2011-2014. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Global Taiwan Institute in Washington DC and was a Visiting Fellow at Academia Sinica in Taipei in 2016 and 2019.

Most recent books

Michael has written books on EU-Taiwan relations, on Taiwanese railway history, and on British policy to East Asia; and co-edited more. His most recent book, The Great Free Trade Myth: British Foreign Policy and East Asia Since 1980, was published in 2020, and China, Taiwan, the UK and the CPTPP, his second work co-edited with Chun-yi Lee, was published in June 2023.

Commentaries

Michael is a regular commentator on European policy towards Taiwan, on which he has given evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons, been interviewed on Times Radio in the UK, by Voice of America and Nikkei Asia and had opinion pieces in the Financial Times, The Diplomat and more.

Professor Gary Rawnsley

grawnsley@lincoln.ac.uk

Expertise keywords: Propaganda; Public Diplomacy; Cultural Diplomacy; Soft Power; international communications; political communication; information warfare.

Biography

Gary Rawnsley is Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences and Professor of Public Diplomacy, University of Lincoln. He works at the intersection of international politics and communications. Professor Rawnsley has held visiting positions in Australia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. In 2023-2024, he is a Global Fellow at Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, South Korea.

He is book reviews editor of the Journal of International Communication and serves on the editorial boards of the Hague Journal of Diplomacy and the Journal of Chinese Film Studies. Professor Rawnsley is also a member of the Soft Power Advocacy and Research Centre at Macquarie University.

Recent books

• Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media (2nd edn., 2024)
• Routledge Handbook of Soft Power (2nd edn., 2023)
• Research Handbook of Political Propaganda (Edward Elgar, 2022)

Dr Ming-Yeh Rawnsley

mytrawnsley@gmail.com

Expertise keywords: Taiwan cinema; taiyupian; cultural democratisation; Taiwan media; science communications; cross-cultural communications

Affiliation to the hub: Non-Resident Fellow

Biography

Dr Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley is Research Associate, Centre of Taiwan Studies, SOAS University of London. She is also Research Associate at the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan.

Ming-Yeh was Secretary-General, European Association of Taiwan Studies (EATS, 2012–2018), and is the founding Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Taiwan Studies (2018–present), co-sponsored by EATS and Academia Sinica. She worked as a researcher at the University of Nottingham (1999–2005) and became Head of Chinese Studies at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (2005–2007). Before she joined SOAS in 2013 and Academia Sinica in 2018, Min-Yeh researched and taught East Asian film industries at the University of Leeds (2007–2013). 

Most recent books

• Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, Gary Rawnsley, and Yiben Ma (eds), Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media 2nd Edition. London: Routledge, 2025.
• Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, Corrado Neri, Wafa Ghermani, and Chris Berry (eds), Taiwanese-Language Cinema: Rediscovered and Reconsidered. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024
• Ming-Yeh Rawnsley (蔡明燁) (trans), The Age of Addiction (成癮時代：壞習慣如何變成大生意), Taipei: Li-xu, 2020.
• Ming-Yeh Rawnsley, Kuei-fen Chiu and Gary Rawnsley (eds), Taiwan Cinema: International Reception and Social Change. London: Routledge, 2017

Commentaries

Dr Ming-Yeh T. Rawnsley has published widely in both English and Chinese on Chinese-language cinema and media and democratisation in Taiwan. Her earliest publications included The World of Media (in Chinese, 2000) and Critical Security, Democratisation and Television in Taiwan (co-authored with Gary Rawnsley, 2001). 

Ming-Yeh is currently working on several projects, including the Encyclopedia of Taiwan Studies (with an international team led by Professor Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao of Academia Sinica), ‘TransTaiwan: A Research Gateway to Taiwan Studies (TARGTS)’ (with an international team led by Dr Isabelle Cockel of University of Portsmouth), and ‘Screening the Port City: Poetics and Promotions’ research project (with Dr Wyatt Moss-Wellington of University of Sydney and Dr Yat-Ming Loo of University of Nottingham Ningbo China).

Dr Shelley Rigger

shrigger@davidson.edu

Expertise keywords: Taiwan domestic politics; Cross-strait relations; Democracy in Taiwan; National identity in Taiwan-China relations; Cross-strait economic interactions; Taiwan's perceptions of mainland China.

Affiliation to the hub: Non-resident Fellow

Biography

Shelley Rigger is the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty and the Brown Professor of Political Science at Davidson College. She has a PhD in government from Harvard University and a BA in public and international affairs from Princeton University. She has been a visiting researcher at National Chengchi University (2005) and a visiting professor at Fudan University (2006) and Shanghai Jiaotong University (2013 and 2015). In 2019 she was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at National Taiwan University.

Recent books

Shelley is the author of two scholarly books on Taiwan's domestic politics, Politics in Taiwan: Voting for Democracy (Routledge 1999) and From Opposition to Power: Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party (Lynne Rienner Publishers 2001) as well as two books for general readers, Why Taiwan Matters: Small Island, Global Powerhouse (Rowman and Littlefield 2011) and The Tiger Leading the Dragon: How Taiwan Propelled China’s Economic Rise (Rowman and Littlefield 2021).

Professor Gunter Schubert

gunter.schubert@uni.tuebingen.de

Affiliation to the hub: Non-Resident Senior Fellow

Biography

Gunter Schubert is a Chair Professor of Greater China Studies in the Department of Chinese at Tübingen University. He is also the founder and director of the European Research Center on Contemporary Taiwan (ERCCT) at the same university.  Additionally, he holds the position of Associate Research Professor at the Graduate School of East Asian Studies (GEAS) at Freie Universität Berlin.

His research encompasses various areas, including local governance and policy implementation in the PRC, the reform of China’s private sector and state-business relations, cross-strait political economy and economic integration, as well as domestic politics in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

More recently, he has focused on China's evolving role in the International Political Economy and has explored China's impact on the "Global South" as contemporary imperiality. Gunter serves as the editor of "The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Taiwan" (2nd edition forthcoming). He has published extensively in English, German, French, and Chinese and conducts annual field research in PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

Professor Yi-Hsin Elsa Hsu

elsahsu@tmu.edu.tw

Expertise keywords: Industrial Engineering; Healthcare Management; Education Innovation Management; Data Analysis and Modeling

Affiliation to the hub: Non-resident-fellow of Taiwan Studies Programme, University of Nottingham

Biography

Professor Yi-Hsin Elsa Hsu is a distinguished academic with a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States. Her extensive experience spans various sectors, including industry, government, academia, research, and the medical field.

Elsa holds the position of Professor in the Biotechnology EMBA program, the School of Medicine, and the Department of Healthcare Administration at Taipei Medical University. Her expertise lies in healthcare institution management and global Budget in Health Insurance, innovative education strategies, and a strong emphasis on data analysis and mathematical modelling such as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

In addition to her academic role, Professor Hsu has significantly contributed to her community. She has served as the Dean of Student Affairs and the Director of academic departments at Taipei Medical University. She has been a committee member for the National Health Insurance Medical Expenditure Negotiation Committee, a vital regulatory body overseeing NHI global budgets under the Department of Health (DOH), and the consultant for the DOH and the Taipei City Government.

Elsa’s collaborative efforts with Dr Ya-Ting Yang have facilitated over 100 university student teams' success, resulting in numerous awards and over US$500,000 in funding.

Most recent books

Professor Hsu Yi-Hsin is the principal investigator for multiple projects funded by the Taiwan National Science Council, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the National Health Insurance Administration. Additionally, she is one of the authors of several published books, including “Navigating Biotechnology with Legendary Women: Six Lessons in Biotech Industry Management by Female Entrepreneurs” (玩轉生技.巾幗傳奇：六堂女性企業家的生技產業經營管理課), “Public Health” (公共衛生學), “Quality Management in Health Care” (醫療品質學), “National Health Insurance “ (全民健保), etc.

Commentaries

Elsa’s diverse background and extensive experience make her a valuable asset to both academia and society. Her unwavering passion for education has brought about a remarkable transformation in the teaching arena, creating a profound impact on the lives of students.

Dr Ya-Ting Yang

M111097010@tmu.edu.tw

Expertise keywords: brand strategy planning, integrated marketing communication, new media, new retail, field development and operation, international medical service and elderly industry business model design and strategy planning, creative, innovation and entrepreneurship education

Affiliation to the hub: Non-resident-fellow of Taiwan Studies Programme, University of Nottingham

Biography

Dr Ya-Ting Yang, a scholar and seasoned entrepreneur, holds a PhD from National Taiwan University and a Dr PH from Johns Hopkins University. With over several years of entrepreneurial experience, she has earned international recognition for her substantial contributions to brand design, innovation, and entrepreneurship. In addition to her role as the CEO of Taishang Resource International Group, Ya-Ting humbly serves as an adjunct assistant professor at both the General Education Center of Taipei Medical University and Soochow University. In this capacity, she generously imparts her extensive knowledge in the domains of creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship to inspire and guide aspiring individuals.

Ya-Ting’s influence extends far beyond academic boundaries, as she graciously offers invaluable guidance to numerous startup teams. She and Professor Yi-Hsin Hsu make up a golden combination in co-teaching between academia and industry, assisting them in achieving prestigious innovation and entrepreneurship awards and facilitating their successful fundraising endeavors.

Furthermore, she selflessly provides consultancy services to numerous companies, aiding them in crafting effective brand strategies, developing integrated marketing communications, and implementing impactful sustainability initiatives. Throughout her distinguished career, Ya-Ting has immersed herself in the multifaceted realms of creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and business management. Her expertise encompasses a broad spectrum of activities, including product and service design, market validation, patent applications, international expansion, and the intricacies of mergers and acquisitions. Her extensive hands-on experience consistently yields commendable outcomes.

Most recent books

Dr. Yang have had the privilege of serving as the Editor-in-Chief for a series of impactful book publications:

• 《點銀成金：打造樂齡銀髮黃金生活的魔法事業(Turning Silver to Gold: Crafting the Enchanted Business of Golden Elderly Lives)
• 《白袍下的全球拓荒者：國際醫療典範獎得獎者行醫故事(Global Pioneers in White Coats: International Medical Model Award Winners) 》
• 《玩轉生技.巾幗傳奇：六堂女性企業家的生技產業經營管理課(Navigating Biotechnology with Legendary Women: Six Lessons in Biotech Industry Management by Female Entrepreneurs)》.

Additionally, the one of authors with《創造護理新價值(Innovation Creating Nursing New Values)》.

Commentaries

Dr Ya-Ting Yang, as both a serial entrepreneur and a professor-entrepreneur, offers invaluable insights to various fields, including academia and industry, and tirelessly endeavors to ignite the innovative catalyst for addressing real-world challenges, driving continuous efforts to bring about change in the world.