POSTECH received tentative permission to establish the Division of Advanced Nuclear Engineering, the university’s fourth World Class University (WCU) program, from the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology.

The proposed Division of Advanced Nuclear Engineering, led by Professor Moo Hwan Kim of the Department of Mechanical Engineering is in charge, is planned to educate and research Nuclear Engineering as an interdisciplinary study of four ordinary fields: Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Material Science and Engineering. With a worldwide interest in nuclear power generation, POSTECH aims to produce corresponding experts with the upcoming 100 Korean nuclear reactor epoch beginning with a huge exportation to United Arab Emirates worth forty billion dollars last year.

Four research directions, including nuclear reactor physics, management to radioactive wastes, hydrogen generation based on nuclear energy, and nuclear energy security and related materials, would be led by seven POSTECH professors and seven invited renowned scholars, including John Lee of the University of Michigan. Under them, starting next semester, twenty students will enter the school annually. Nearly 2.5 billion won will be supported by the Korean government.

The WCU project is a five-year national project spending 825 billion won to grow Korean universities into world-class universities by inviting great scholars and establishing new departments. In POSTECH, there are three such departments, the Division of Integrative Bioscience and Biotechnology, the Division of Advanced Material Science, and the Division of IT Convergence Engineering, supported by the WCU project.