Biography

Chan-Yuan Wong is Professor and Chair of the Institute of Technology Management at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Taiwan, where he also serves as Director of the International Bachelor of Business Administration (IBBA) program at the college level. He earned his PhD at the University of Malaya, Malaysia, and completed a brief doctoral research placement at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, before serving as Senior Lecturer at the University of Malaya from 2011 to 2018.

Internationally, he is affiliated as a Visiting Professor with the South African Research Chair in Industrial Development (SARChI-ID) at the University of Johannesburg. He has also been appointed Honorary Doctoral Advisor at the University of Liverpool (UK) and serves as Chair for Semiconductor Engineering with the Taiwan Innovation Program (SETI), where he is responsible for coordinating the coaching program at NTHU for exchange students from the University of Toronto. He is also an Associate Editor of Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Beyond academia, he has undertaken consultancy work for a wide range of organizations, including UNCTAD, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Science and Technology in Malaysia, and UNIID-SEA in the Philippines. Wong has also held several international visiting appointments, including Visiting Fellow at UNU-MERIT, Netherlands (2015), Researcher at Seoul National University, Korea (2017) and Visiting Scholar at Hitotsubashi University, Japan (2024).

Wong is a scholar of innovation and technology policy, adopting regional and comparative perspectives-particularly with reference to East Asia and emerging economies to analyze processes of industrial catch-up and transformation. His research focuses on regional innovation systems and examines how cities and nations develop industrial and technological capabilities. His work situates technology and industry within broader contexts of geographical clustering and planning. Integrating innovation studies, policy frameworks, scientometric analysis, and evolutionary economics, his research emphasizes how industrial regions and emerging economies upgrade, govern innovation, and navigate structural industrial change.

Some of his recent acknowledged works have focused extensively on the semiconductor industry, examining how Taiwan, Korea, and other economies build semiconductor capacity and carve out niches within global value chains amid geopolitical and technological shifts. His research frequently employs comparative analyses of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung Electronics to explore processes of technological upgrading and industrial transformation.

His recent work has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Transport Reviews, Journal of Rural Studies, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Cities, among others. His most recent book, Experimental Learning, Inclusive Growth, and Industrialized Economies in Asia: Lessons from South Korea and Taiwan, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in August 2022.