Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica (BRCAS) was officially established in January 2004. The mission of BRCAS is to promote, coordinate, and sponsor basic biodiversity research in Taiwan; to advance domestic and international research collaboration; to integrate biological, biotechnological, ecological, and socio-economical disciplines in pursuit of academic excellence and innovation; and to provide the scientific foundation for the conservation, education, and sustainable use of biodiversity. The Center was formed also to render assistance to and enforce the“Biodiversity Action Plan”, ushered by the Executive Yuan of Taiwan and has contributed to governmental strategy planning on ecological conservation, preservation, and sustainability.
Four major research domains in BRC are: (1) Marine Biodiversity and Ecosystems, (2) Terrestrial Biodiversity and Ecosystems, (3) Evolutionary Genetics and Genomics, and (4) Microbial Diversity and Bioinformatics