I’m intending to post a longer update on my own experience later when I have time (just got the e-mail approval this morning!), but I’d suggest getting on this quickly given that the government has just stopped visa exemptions for foreigners.
I also originally applied under Technology on Dec. 31 and didn’t hear anything back for about 5 weeks until I started e-mailing people, which seemed to kick something into action as I then got a request for additional documentation - documentation that I couldn’t provide as it was originally issued in China and needed to be notarized there first.
I discussed this back and forth with the NIA, Straits Exchange Foundation, and National Development Council but, long story short, I switched to applying under Education on the basis of having a PhD from a top 200 university, which was basically the only requirement for that category and much easier. As I understand it, Technology seems to be the strictest of the usual categories and they do note somewhere during application that they undertake extensive examination of each application.
I’d suggest contacting them before changing the category. I did ultimately just change mine on the system, but it doesn’t really seem set up for that - the website is still quite buggy, and for mine the original category and documents were still showing until submitting everything, with no way to see whether any of the changes or new files had been saved (there are different document upload fields for each category, and the ones for the new category simply didn’t show prior to actual submission).
I’d suggest calling Mr. Huang at the Ministry of Labor/NDC (see the contact list) - I think that’s who I spoke to, and he was really helpful. I wouldn’t leave it too long if you need to leave in a month. It’s been about 2.5 weeks since my revised application (with a couple more phone calls to confirm everything had gone through), and I just got the notification to drop off my passport last week and the one to collect the card this morning.