NTUST supports financially, socially and environmentally sustainable start-ups on campus and in the surrounding community through its Business Incubation Center (Taiwan Tech Innovation Incubator, Tii), the School of Continuing Education, academic departments, and its University Social Responsibility (USR) projects. With more than 26 years of incubation experience, the Center runs the "Taiwan Tech Industry Accelerator", which brings together distinguished alumni, industry mentors and NTUST's technical expertise in a model where established companies help smaller ones grow.

NTUST's resources fall into two groups, depending on whether participants pay:

• Free resources: entrepreneurship talks, start-up resource briefings, hands-on workshops, the Global Talent Entrepreneurship Program (GTEP), the U-start Acceleration Camp and application coaching, start-up competitions, local USR collaboration, and pre-employment training that is fully subsidised for eligible trainees.
• Paid resources: professional courses for employed workers offered by the School of Continuing Education (e.g. the Carbon Inventory Practice Course), with government subsidies that greatly reduce the trainee's share. Incubator residency is provided under a tenancy agreement.

In 2022 NTUST launched the Global Talent Entrepreneurship Program (GTEP), a free, English-language, roughly six-month programme open to international students across Taiwan. It offers lean start-up courses and one-to-one expert mentoring, and ends with a Demo Day competition. The first cohort drew 10 teams from 8 universities and 13 countries. Winners included sustainability-focused ventures such as AFA, which recycles plastic bags into eco-friendly bags.

The 4th GTEP Demo Day was held on 28 November 2025 in NTUST's International Building. After about six months of training and mentoring, teams from five countries competed alongside international teams from partner universities in Thailand. The total prize pool was NT$270,000, including a Special Excellence Award (NT$100,000), an Excellence Award (NT$50,000), Merit Awards and shortlist prizes.

Working with its alumni, NTUST set up the "NTUST Silicon Valley Center" in the United States in 2016 and launched the "Taiwan Tech to Silicon Valley" programme. The programme selects campus spin-off teams with international market potential and funds them to train in Silicon Valley, visit companies, and meet investors and experienced entrepreneur-mentors. When they return, teams share what they learned and take up residency at the NTUST incubator for continued support.

The Business Incubation Center holds free, open talks and workshops in its Micro Garage, where founders share practical experience from the first idea through product development to a working business model

The School of Continuing Education brings together NTUST experts in environmental engineering, green energy and management with ESG practitioners from industry. Its sustainability courses help job seekers and employed workers bring sustainability and carbon-management skills into their businesses:

• Pre-employment training: ESG Sustainability Management Practice Course, Cohort 4 (free): 20 Nov 2026 to 29 Jan 2027, 300 hours, for job seekers who want to work in ESG roles, training future green-collar professionals. Eligible trainees receive a full subsidy.
• Industrial talent course: Carbon Inventory Practice Course, Cohort 1 (paid): 9 to 23 May 2026, 18 hours, taught through case studies and hands-on exercises by an instructor specialising in ISO 14064, ISO 50001 and carbon footprinting. The fee is NT$3,510. Eligible employed workers receive a subsidy of at least 80% and pay NT$702.

📰 News and evidence links for this section
• CNA (5 Dec 2022) NTUST builds a cradle for international talent, pioneers start-up training for foreign students: https://www.cna.com.tw/Postwrite/Chi/330653
• Tii (Nov 2025) 4th GTEP Demo Day international competition concludes: https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/11194/
• Tii, 4th GTEP Demo Day event page: https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/11168/
• Tii, 2018 "Taiwan Tech to Silicon Valley" call for applications: https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/4067/
• AI-Driven Business Innovation workshop: https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/10982/
• "Entrepreneurs Are Here": Qunqingji https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/11131/ | Mingtian Design https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/11163/
• ESG Sustainability Management Practice Course: https://sce.ntust.edu.tw/p/404-1074-152093.php?Lang=zh-tw
• Carbon Inventory Practice Course: https://sce.ntust.edu.tw/p/404-1074-146434.php?Lang=zh-tw

The Business Incubation Center coaches current students and alumni who graduated within the last five academic years as they form teams and apply to the Ministry of Education's U-start programme. U-start provides basic start-up funding in Stage 1 and additional grants for outstanding teams in Stage 2. Over five years, 37 NTUST teams received U-start funding, the most of any university in Taiwan. In 2022 alone, 8 teams passed Stage 1 (NT$4 million in total), and 3 of them were named outstanding teams and received another NT$1.1 million, for NT$5.1 million overall.

To help teams write their proposals, the Center held briefings on the 2026 U-start Stage 1 application (9 to 11 Dec 2025). It also ran the free 4th U-start Acceleration Camp (10 Jan 2026, Micro Garage), with courses on pitching, product design and market strategy, start-up financial planning, and IP and patent strategy. Past U-start teams mentored participants one to one on their proposals. The camp was open to university students, recent graduates and young people aged 18 to 35, including foreign nationals with residence visas.

The NTUST Distinguished Alumni Association runs this competition together with the university's start-up support system. Distinguished alumni mentor each team one to one, and the champion receives a NT$1,000,000 start-up fund. The 4th final took place on 19 September 2025 and was won by Boling Intelligent Control, an AI workflow-automation platform. Each finalist received NT$30,000 and each semi-finalist NT$20,000. Six coaching mentors and a panel of alumni and industry judges took part.

📰 News and evidence links for this section
• CNA (16 Nov 2022) NTUST start-ups win NT$5.1 million in U-start funding, the most teams funded nationwide: https://www.cna.com.tw/postwrite/chi/329122
• Tii, 4th NTUST U-start Acceleration Camp: https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/11226/
• Tii, 2026 U-start Stage 1 application briefing: https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/11179/
• Tii, 4th Taiwan Tech Rising Star selection concludes: https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/11204/
• NTUST News: NT.1,000,000 for Rising Stars to Shine: https://www.ntust.edu.tw/p/16-1000-106531.php?Lang=en

The Business Incubation Center offers office space, the Micro Garage co-working space and company residency, and links early-stage teams with NTUST laboratories, faculty expertise and industry mentors. With listed company Liontek (撼訊科技), the Center runs a joint R&D centre that hosts start-ups on campus. It also helps teams apply for government grants, matches them with partner companies and promotes their products.

To make these resources easier to reach, the Center held the free "2025 Taiwan Tech Accelerator Call for Applications and Start-up Resource Briefings":

• Session 1: 27 Mar 2025, Glass House, 1F International Building. Besides presenting incubation space and coaching services, outside agencies explained the Taipei City industry incentive programme, government policy resources for registered international incubators, the AI start-up investment programme, and the Startup Island TAIWAN overseas programme.
• Session 2: 16 Oct 2025, online, on start-up funding, financial planning and AI R&D resources.

Through the technology transfer function of the Office of Industry-Academia Collaboration and its specialist research centres, NTUST licenses patented technology and arranges industry partnerships, so that start-ups and local businesses can use university research. In 2025 the value of NTUST's industry-academia contracts topped NT$530 million, and IP income in 2024 reached NT$130 million, both record highs. With 73 invention patents in 2025, NTUST ranked fourth among Taiwanese universities. Its "steel side-brace buckling-restrained member" is licensed non-exclusively and has been licensed 89 times, so many small and medium-sized firms can use it.

📰 News and evidence links for this section
• Business Today (24 Dec 2024) NTUST Business Incubation Center focuses on technology and engineering, accelerating a big-helps-small incubation model: https://www.businesstoday.com.tw/article/category/183030/post/202412240021/
• 1111 Job Bank News (17 Mar 2026) NTUST ranks 4th in patents; industry-academia contracts top NT$530 million: https://www.1111.com.tw/news/jobns/164956
• 2025 Accelerator Call and Start-up Resource Briefing (Session 1): https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/10945/
• 2025 Accelerator Call and Start-up Resource Briefing II (online): https://www.bic.ntust.edu.tw/11134/

Through its University Social Responsibility (USR) projects, NTUST takes faculty and students into local communities. They work with residents, local governments, farmers' associations and community groups to build sustainable models that combine social benefit with regional revitalisation:

• Chengnan Unlimited: Sustainable Co-creation of the City and the Unlimited University: set in Taipei's Chengnan district, where NTUST is located, this project plans a cultural and environmental corridor linking the Gongguan campus, the Huizi Building, the Toad Mountain settlement and the Chengnan Academy. It returns what the project has built up to the community to support local sustainable development and revitalisation.
• "From Fields to Stage: A Regional Revitalisation Experiment" (Guanshan, Taitung): in February 2026 NTUST's Department of Architecture signed an MOU with Waseda University, the University of Shiga Prefecture, the Guanshan Township Office and the Guanshan Farmers' Association. Together they are redesigning the association's "Mi Guo School" public space, reusing driftwood from Typhoon Morakot as building material. Students interview residents and contribute designs, Supporting local agritourism and food-education businesses.
• Engineers in Action: an international-collaboration project in the Ministry of Education's fourth USR phase. It works with universities in Indonesia, Vietnam and Japan on sanitation and water needs in remote communities.
• 2026 MOE USR Joint Capacity-Building Event: on 18 September 2026 NTUST hosted "New Horizons for Sustainability: Innovation, Diffusion and International Cooperation". Scholars and practitioners from Taiwan, Japan, the US and Indonesia shared experience in regional revitalisation, smart governance and community resilience.

📰 News and evidence links for this section
• CNA (26 Feb 2026) NTUST Architecture partners with Japan in Guanshan, Taitung, to transform rural public space for regional revitalisation: https://www.cna.com.tw/Postwrite/Chi/426734
• CNA (21 Sep 2026) NTUST brings together USR experience from Taiwan, Japan, the US and Indonesia: https://www.cna.com.tw/postwrite/chi/444750
• CommonWealth Magazine: NTUST "Chengnan Unlimited" project: https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5123189
• LINE TODAY: "Chengnan Unlimited" USR project: https://today.line.me/tw/v2/article/nXgeNEK

Summary: Media coverage shows that NTUST's start-up support covers four areas: talent training (GTEP, talks and workshops, ESG training), funding (the most U-start teams funded nationwide and a NT$1 million start-up fund), facilities and technology (the accelerator and record technology-licensing income), and local engagement (USR work in Chengnan, Guanshan and remote communities overseas). Most of these resources are free to students, alumni, job seekers and local communities, and government subsidies cut the trainee's share of paid professional courses to 20% or less. Together they show NTUST meeting SDG 1.4.1 by supporting sustainable local start-ups.