The Institutum Iurisprudentiae was founded at Academia Sinica in July 2011. The founding of the Institute can be traced back to October 1999, when Dr. Yuan Tseh Lee, the President of Academia Sinica at the time, commissioned a planning committee for the Institute’s development. Convened by the fifth-term Grand Justice Herbert HP Ma, the committee met seven times and submitted a Founding Proposal to the Council of Academia Sinica on 30th June 2000. The Council, however, did not approve of the proposal. Three years later, in December 2003, President Lee appointed seven members for a second planning committee, convened by the sixth-term Grand Justice Tze-Chien Wang. In planning on the Institute’s development, the committee took into account the current status of legal studies in Taiwan, academic resources, and the distinctive missions and role of Academia Sinica being the nation’s premier academic research institution; it came to agree on four fundamental principles: I. To revamp legal studies in Taiwan by breaking new ground with the spirit of creativity. II. To develop core areas of research, where resources and strengths are to be combined to yield first-rate, internationally recognized scholarship. III. To maintain a flexible organizing structure where research staff can freely interact and work together to promote productive cooperation or competition. IV. To adopt phased developing plans and respond to changing circumstances at each phase. Following three intensive meetings, the committee produced a Founding Proposal following the foregoing principles in March 2004, and passed the review of the Council of Academia Sinica. With the final approval given by the President of Taiwan on 1st July in the same year, the Institutum Iurisprudentiae Preparatory Office came into existence, headed by Director and Research Professor Dennis TC Tang. In the beginning, the Preparatory Office comprised seven research staff (three Research Professors, three Associate Research Professors, and one Assistant Research Professor) who were reassigned from other institutes at Academia Sinica, and went on to recruit research staff according to the fundamental principles of the Founding Proposal. Seven years from then, by early 2011, the Office had expanded its research staff to seventeen members (one Distinguished Research Professor, two Research Professors, six Associate Research Professors, and eight Assistant Research Professors), plus two joint appointment research staff co-affiliated with National Taiwan University (one Joint Appointment Research Professor and one Associate Joint Appointment Professor). On 23rd April 2011, the Council of Academia Sinica approved of the proposal on the Preparatory Office’s transition to the full status of the Institute. As the proposal acquired its final approval from the President of Taiwan, President Chi-Huey Wong of Academia Sinica signed off the commencement of the Institutum Iurisprudentiae on 1st July 2011.
