KYUNG HEE UNIVERSITY

Kyung Hee posts the greatest rise in ranking among Korea’s top ten universities in the 2012 Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities.

In the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities announced August 20, Kyung Hee University advanced 23 places to reach 425th overall. Kyung Hee was judged eighth among all Korean universities and sustained its rapid rise in position, vaulting 72 places over the past two years. Focused mainly on academic capacity, this ranking evaluates universities on factors such as the number of Nobel Prizes or Fields Medals and publications in major academic journals.

Kyung Hee’s research excellence, which has been enhanced over the past five years by the addition of 590 new faculty members and the expansion and establishment of innovative research programs, has been quantitatively confirmed by both domestic and international evaluations. In the Joongang Daily University Ranking, Kyung Hee ascended from 19th place in 2007 to 9th place in 2011 due to its distinction in research. In the 2011 QS Asian University Rankings, Kyung Hee’s rate of increase in its number of SCI-listed journal publications was 109%, more than three times higher than the 32.9% average growth rate among the 35 Korean universities in the top 200.

According to a presentation at the 2012 Academic Board Annual Conference, the number of papers per faculty member in the social sciences and humanities nearly doubled, from 0.75 in 2007 to 1.47 in 2011. The number of intellectual property rights registered by the university also increased fourfold, from 183 to 740. The number of cited papers in SCI, SSCI, and A&HCI journals similarly surged, from 1.76 to 4.87 per faculty member.

For the past five years, Kyung Hee has been laying the foundations to become “a true university of the future” through investing in education and research, introducing an autonomous administration system, supporting globalization, and establishing the Humanitas College. As a result, Kyung Hee has witnessed the most rapid improvement among all universities in the QS World University Rankings, catapulting 259 places from 504th in 2007 to 245th in 2011.