Formerly known as Kaohsiung Polytechnic Institute (KPI), I-Shou University (ISU) was established in 1990 to meet the country’s development needs and cultivate talent in engineering and management, and KPI was officially upgraded and renamed I-Shou University in 1997. Aspiring to become an international comprehensive university, ISU spares no effort to develop and grow in all aspects. In 2009, the International College was inaugurated to foster a total immersion learning environment in English to nurture young professionals in international affairs and fuel campus internationalization. To extend its medical education impact, ISU established not only the School of Chinese Medicine for Post Baccalaureate in 2010 but also the School of Medicine for International Students in 2013, the only English-taught medical program in Taiwan to assist diplomatic allies in fostering medical practitioners who will, after graduation, address the issue of insufficient medical resources in their home countries. Also in 2013, after thirteen years of hard work and persistent efforts, the establishment of the College of Medicine was officially approved by the Ministry of Education, marking a milestone in ISU’s medical education. Starting 2012, ISU offers several bachelor’s degree programs to indigenous youth living locally and in remote areas; and the College of Indigenous Studies was inaugurated in 2016 to contribute more to the social and economic development of indigenous peoples. In 2019, the newly established School of Medicine started recruiting government-funded students, making ISU one of the four comprehensive universities in Taiwan that has a college of medicine. In 2020, the College of Intelligent Science and Technology was established with the approval of the Ministry of Education to show ISU’s ambition of diving into smart technologies. And in 2021, the College of Medical Science and Technology was officially established to contribute to the cultivation of technology specialists in the field of medicine and to the advancement of medical technology in Taiwan.

With its continuous development, ISU currently has 10 colleges and 44 departments (including the School of Medicine for International Students), offering 16 master’s programs, 7 doctoral programs, 3 bachelor’s degree programs for indigenous peoples, 1 English-taught international program, 14 evening bachelor’s degree programs, 2 two-year in-service bachelor’s degree programs, and 8 in-service master’s programs. ISU has a student body of 13,000 students (including international students from more than 40 countries) and 500 full-time faculty members. To work toward the goal of becoming an EMI-centered bilingual university in 2028, ISU established the Bilingual Education and EMI Center in 2021, and the International College and the College of Medicine of ISU were handpicked by the Ministry of Education for further cultivation of bilingual education under the Program on Bilingual Education for Students in College. As one of the biggest institutions of higher education in southern Taiwan, ISU values humanistic qualities as much as technology and medicine and aspires to cultivate interdisciplinary talent.

ISU has passed the institutional accreditation and the program accreditation and earned the IEET accreditation. The College of Management, the International College, and the College of Tourism and Hospitality passed the AACSB continuous improvement review (CIR) process in 2021 after having been accredited by AACSB in 2016. Having regarded medicine and smart technology as the foundation and valued interdisciplinary innovation and global competitiveness, ISU established the NVIDIA Studio and the Metaverse Center for Technology, Arts, and Design in 2022, aiming to nurture international talent with the knowledge and skills demanded in the new era.