The "Win the PRIDE: Telling Stories with Indicators" competition organized by the Science & Technology Policy Research and Information Center  (STPI) was held at Technology Building in Taipei on December 14. The High Distinction Award winners of the senior high school group were Lin Che-wei, Weng Yun-chih, and Fang Hsuan-yeh from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School. Entitled “An island with offshore wind potential-Exploring the development of Taiwan’s offshore wind energy based on other countries’ experiences,” the project impressed the judges with meticulous attention to detail and clear logic. The project pinpointed potential directions of Taiwan’s offshore wind development, not only by analyzing the global trends in wind energy but also looking into the strategies adopted by a couple of European countries, where wind energy had matured.

The High Distinction Award of the college group was given to Chiang Chun-han, Sun Hsiao-han, Liao Ting-wei, and Ho Chun-wei from the Department of Business of Administration at National Taipei University. The project, “‘He’ and ‘she’ are equally important- Reflections on gender equality as one of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by the United Nations,” utilizes international indicators to analyze women’s status in economic involvement, employment, and social influence.

The graduate group’s High Distinction Award went to Wu Kuan-yi and Chen Yi-ching from the Department of International Business at National Taipei University of Business. The project was entitled “The second half of lives- Who is going to take care of my loved ones and me,” looking at the long-term care system in the Netherlands- a country with a system that is widely considered as the model for the world. It also referred to the Netherlands’ example as a standard to analyze the current long-term care system in Taiwan and offered suggestions for its future development.

In the hope of encouraging students in Taiwan to pay attention to issues at home and abroad, STPI has held the "Win the PRIDE: Telling Stories with Indicators" competition for four consecutive years. The competition expects participants to make the most of the plentiful data and indicators the Policy Research Indicators DatabasE (PRIDE) provides, broaden horizons and further develop insights into the global trends. The competition is divided into three groups this year: the senior high school group, the college group, and the graduate group, with a total of 131 projects. Thirty-four projects made it to the final round. In the final round, the written report and the three-to-five-minute presentation accounted for 70% and 30% of the final grade respectively.

The projects submitted this year covered a wide range of topics, such as labor conditions, economy, wages and salaries, talent development, food and agriculture, education, energy, gender, medical care, long-term care, and travel. Not only were the students able to describe the issues of their concerns and express opinions accordingly, but they were also capable of presenting their arguments with support of data analysis and demonstrating innovative ways of thinking.

On behalf of the jury, Mr. Huang Chun-mu, a teacher from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, pointed out that jury members were amazed at several breakthrough ideas and students’ creativity. Students were also skillful in navigating PRIDE. He encouraged participants to keep on improving reasoning and analyzing abilities and use data and graphs to shed light on their viewpoints.

In addition to hosting the "Win the PRIDE: Telling Stories with Indicators" competition, STPI will continue publishing reports with data from PRIDE. (For more information, please visit https://pride.stpi.narl.org.tw/index.) The topics will cover current affairs and issues of public concern. STPI hopes that these reports will serve as catalysts to attract more experts and researchers to use the database and conduct in-depth research; the reports, with easy-to-understand language, will also give the general public a window into domestic and global trends in diverse fields, such as technology, society, and economics.