During a board meeting on January 30, it was decided that POSTECH will drive POSTECH 2.0 by investing a massive 1.2 trillion KRW over 10 years until 2033. Following selection as a Glocal University, a further large-scale additional investment will be made through consultations with POSTECH Foundation. POSTECH 2.0 aims to secure sustainable growth engines through innovation in faculty, students, and management.
POSTECH is facing a major crisis due to high population concentration in the metropolitan area and regional extinction. POSTECH was established as the first research university in Korea, but since then several science and engineering institutions have been newly built and are highly competitive. In the meantime, rotten facilities have greatly deteriorated. Accordingly, POSTECH will make the final leap to reach the level of prestigious overseas universities, such as Caltech and MIT, targeting 2036 or completion. This 2024 will be the first year of POSTECH 2.0.
Through this investment, POSTECH plans to make all-out efforts to attract excellent faculty members. A total of 103.6 billion KRW will be invested in hiring faculty, and 112.4 billion KRW will be further invested in strengthening research competitiveness. Efforts will be made to attract erudite international scholars, while the competitiveness of faculties will be strengthened through a performance-based incentive system and support for next-generation leader researchers. An early retirement age extension system will be introduced for the first time in Korea, to guarantee a retirement age of up to 70 in order to support a long-term research environment. In addition, POSTECH plans to build a regional strategic industry R&D center, investing about 100 billion KRW to discover and strengthen support for key research areas.
Students will also be given a lot of support. Undergraduate students are to be provided with vouchers worth 10 million KRW with which they can have a wider variety of experiences, such as overseas conferences and start-ups. Freshmen are also to be offered a welcome package worth 1 million KRW, Graduate students will be provided with an admission incentive of 1 million KRW and a dispatch opportunity, as well as having the minimum cost of living guaranteed. To overcome the falling university internationalization index, POSTECH is pushing for a bilingual campus and making efforts to attract foreign talent.
POSTECH will also invest in students’ living and research environments. The school will invest more than 700 billion KRW, including 537.7 billion KRW for the construction of facilities and 166.6 billion KRW for the improvement of residential environments, to create a “future campus town.” POSTECH also plans to build a university landmark in time for the 40th anniversary of its opening.
Meanwhile, POSTECH is trying to gather various opinions. A Town Hall meeting with graduate students was hold on Feb. 23 following a teacher Town Hall meeting on Feb. 13. We hope that the unprecedented investment will fully reflect the opinions of university members and serve as the driving force to make POSTECH soar once again.
