I have heard good reviews about the programs at the Academia Sinica.
Today I saw this. Thought someone might like it:
[quote]National Tsing Hua University, National Chiao Tung University and the Industrial Technology Research Institute jointly launched a four-year scholarship program last week aimed at attracting international students with a master’s degree in the sciences to pursue doctoral studies in Taiwan. International students chosen for the scholarship will receive full tuition and a monthly allowance of US$900, the institute said. Successful applicants will also be eligible for research and development internships at the institute after completing all of the academic credits for their studies. The students will also receive stipends for research assistantships as part of their dissertation research. The deadline for applications is March 31. Interested applicants can write to itriphd@itri.org.tw, or call (03) 591-7886 for more information.
I was offered one of the first of these ‘international’ PhD scholarships many years ago. I turned it down because I felt that the conditions for many PhD students here in Taiwan are terrible and the average PhD can take 5-6 years with some even stretching to 7 years as Professors make you stay longer to generate more papers. It’s the Asian way. It would not be easy to do part-time work for the hard sciences. However they may go a bit easier on foreign students and it may also depend on your department as to how much research hours you need to put in (mine’s in mol.biology). At that time there was also no support network for foreign students (as there were basically no foreign students!) and very little material translated into English although conditions may have improved slightly since then as the number of foreign students increases in some depts.
