The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is a leading American university with which NTU enjoys close ties; it moreover ranks among the top choices of NTU students for conducting further studies overseas. On April 12 , UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise and UIUC Associate Chancellor for Public Engagement Dr. Pradeep Khanna visited NTU to discuss new approaches to strengthen cooperation relations between NTU and UIUC with NTU officials.

Besides joining an agreement exchange ceremony for a student exchange program between NTU and UIUC, the UIUC officials participated in an exchange forum with NTU President Si-Chen Lee and representatives from many NTU departments to discuss existing cooperation programs and areas for expanded collaboration.

Chancellor Wise also serves as a Vice President of the University of Illinois system, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. Chancellor Wise’s research interests lie in women’s health and gender-based biology. While at NTU, she met with NTU College of Medicine Dean Pan-Chyr Yang to discuss options for exchanges.

NTU and UIUC have initiated cooperation programs in a variety of areas and are presently implementing nine programs, including a student exchange program, 4+1 a joint dual degree and dual degree program and a library cooperation program. During Chancellor Wise’s visit, discussions focused on seven cooperation programs ranging from interinstitution cooperation and a university library program to cooperation in electrical engineering and computer science, management, civil engineering, social work and landscape architecture. The forms of cooperation adopted for these programs include student, faculty and researcher exchanges as well as research collaboration.

NTU and UIUC also agreed to organize annual global higher education and research conferences to be held alternately in Taiwan and the United States. Conference themes will center on a single topic or research issue and scholars, researchers and administrative officials from the two universities will be invited to present keynote speeches.

Every academic year since 2004, NTU students have attended UIUC for overseas studies; students from the College of Engineering and College of Management have made up the largest portion of these students. Moreover, NTU has received an increasing number of UIUC exchange students over the last five years. It is noteworthy that as many as 69 NTU professors are UIUC alumni. Also, over 50 NTU students are presently enrolled in degree programs at UIUC.

To date, UIUC has been home to 13 professors and 11 alumni who are Nobel Prize laureates. Among the outstanding Taiwanese to attend UIUC are Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee, who earned his bachelor's degree in theater at UIUC in 1980, and former NTU President Szuliang Chien, who earned his PhD at UIUC in 1934, graduating Phi Beta Kappa.