According to the article, “Korean Universities Enter Ranks of World Class Universities,” in the previous issue, POSTECH was ranked 9th in the “University Ranking: Asia 2014” by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). We know from many of the articles and evaluations from various organizations that POSTECH is undoubtedly a leading university in Korea; however, recent rankings from the QS are not up to scratch. It means that POSTECH has fallen in the estimation of the world, although it has risen in the estimation of Korea. In order to become a true world-leading university, this has to be overcome.
Looking closely into each category, it turns out that some categories such as “Academic Reputation (87.5),” “Employer Reputation (90.3),” “International Faculty (88.5),” “International Students (35.9),” “Inbound Exchange (74.9)” and “Outbound Exchange (50.6)” show poor performance in comparison with “Faculty to Student Ratio (100.0),” “Citations per Paper (99.6)” and “Papers per Faculty (99.6).” These are the aspects closely related to the international relationships and they are the key to becoming a widely-known university. As an exchange student myself last semester, I was overwhelmed by the diversity of the students and faculties and their reputations in the world-leading universities. POSTECH has tried and is still trying hard to overcome the weakness in international relationships, but since we are a small and young university, it has been very difficult.
The appointment of President Yongmin Kim was a display of strong will in this sense, since he is well-known and has great connections around the world. However, not much has changed since President Yongmin Kim came to POSTECH. He had to understand the atmosphere in the first few years, and this year, he is implementing his new strategies. In a recent letter to POSTECH members, he mentioned that we are going to abandon top-down development strategies and plans, and take a proactive approach by comparing the current position of POSTECH to world-leading universities. Not all the details are announced in the letter, but we are going to feel the difference.
Strategies are only strategies. They cannot be perfect nor can they be certain. What is certain; however, is that everyone should run for the best and press the pedal to the metal. POSTECH should be able to achieve its goal when all of the members believe in themselves and achieve their goals.