The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is a national

research university A research university or a research-intensive university is a university that is committed to research as a central part of its mission. They are the most important sites at which knowledge production occurs, along with "intergenerational kn ...

located in

Daedeok Innopolis Daedeok Innopolis, formerly known as Daedeok Science Town, is the research and development district in the Yuseong-gu district in Daejeon, South Korea. Daedeok Innopolis grew out of the research cluster established by President Park Chunghee i ...

Daejeon Daejeon () is South Korea's fifth-largest metropolis, with a population of 1.5 million as of 2019. Located in the central-west region of South Korea alongside forested hills and the Geum River, the city is known both for its technology an ...

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

. KAIST was established by the Korean government in 1971 as the nation's first public, research-oriented science and engineering institution. KAIST is considered to be one of the most prestigious universities in the nation. KAIST has been internationally accredited in

business education Business education is a branch of education that involves teaching the skills and operations of the business industry. This field of education occurs at multiple levels, including secondary and higher education Secondary education At secondary l ...

, and hosting the Secretariat of the Association of Asia-Pacific Business Schools (AAPBS). KAIST has 10,504 full-time students and 1,342 faculty researchers (as of Fall 2019 Semester) and had a total budget of US$765 million in 2013, of which US$459 million was from research contracts. In 2007, KAIST partnered with international institutions and adopted

dual degree A double degree program, sometimes called a dual degree, combined degree, conjoint degree, joint degree or double graduation program, involves a student's working for two university degrees in parallel—either at the same institution or at diffe ...

programs for its students. Its partner institutions include the

Technical University of Denmark The Technical University of Denmark ( da, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet), often simply referred to as DTU, is a polytechnic university and school of engineering. It was founded in 1829 at the initiative of Hans Christian Ørsted as Denmark's fir ...

, Carnegie Mellon University, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Technical University of Berlin, and the

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied and natural sciences. Establis ...

History

The institute was founded in 1971 as the Korea Advanced Institute of Science (KAIS) by a loan of US$6 million (US$38 million 2019) from the

United States Agency for International Development The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 b ...

(USAID) and supported by President Park Chung-Hee. The institute's academic scheme was mainly designed by

Frederick E. Terman Frederick Emmons Terman (; June 7, 1900 – December 19, 1982) was an American professor and academic administrator. He was the dean of the school of engineering from 1944 to 1958 and provost from 1955 to 1965 at Stanford University. He is widel ...

, then vice president of Stanford University, and Chung Geum-mo, a professor at the Polytechnic Institution of Brooklyn. The institute's two main functions were to train advanced scientists and engineers and develop a structure of graduate education in the country. Research studies had begun by 1973 and undergraduates studied for bachelor's degrees by 1984. In 1981 the government merged the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and the Korean Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) to form the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, or KAIST. Due to differing research philosophies, KIST and KAIST split in 1989. In the same year KAIST and the Korea Institute of Technology (KIT) combined and moved from

Seoul Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...

to the

Daedeok Science Town Daedeok Innopolis, formerly known as Daedeok Science Town, is the research and development district in the Yuseong-gu district in Daejeon, South Korea. Daedeok Innopolis grew out of the research cluster established by President Park Chunghee in ...

. The first act of President Suh upon his inauguration in July 2006 was to lay out the KAIST Development Plan. The ‘KAIST Development Five-Year Plan’ was finalized on February 5, 2007 by KAIST Steering Committee. The goals of KAIST set by Suh were to become one of the best science and technology universities in the world, and to become one of the top-10 universities by 2011. In January 2008, the university dropped its full name, ''Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology'', and changed its official name to only ''KAIST''.

Timeline

Academics

Admission to KAIST is based on overall grades, grades on math and science courses, recommendation letters from teachers, study plan, personal statements, and other data, and does not rely on a standardized test conducted by the university. In 2014, the acceptance rate for local students was 14.9%, and for

international student International students, or foreign students, are students who undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying. In 2019, there were over 6 million internati ...

s at 13.2%. Full scholarships are given to all students including international students in the bachelor, master and doctorate courses. Doctoral students are given military-exemption benefits from South Korea's compulsory military service. Up to 80% of courses taught in KAIST are conducted in English. Undergraduate students can join the school through an “open major system” that allows students to take classes for three terms and then choose a discipline that suits their aptitude, and undergraduates are allowed to change their major anytime. KAIST has also produced many

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

s through the integrated master's and doctoral program and early-completion system. Students must publish papers in internationally renowned academic journals for graduation.

Students

KAIST produced 69,388 alumni from 1975 to 2021, with 19,457 bachelor's, 35,513 master's, and 14,418 doctorate degree holders. As of Spring 2021, 10,793 students were enrolled in KAIST with 3,605 bachelor's, 3,069 master's, 1,354 joint M.S.-Ph.D.'s, and 2,765 doctoral students. More than 70 percent of KAIST undergraduates come from specialized science high schools. 817 international students from 81 countries are studying at KAIST (as of spring semester 2021), making it one of the most ethnically diverse universities in the country.

Organization

Campus

KAIST has two campuses in

and one campus in Seoul. The university is mainly located in the

in the city of

, 150 kilometers south of the capital

. Daedeok is also home to some 50 public and private research institutes, universities such as CNU and high-tech venture capital companies. Most lectures, research activities, and housing services are located in the Daejeon main campus. It has a total of 29 dormitories. Twenty-three dormitories for male students and four dormitories for female students are located on the outskirts of the campus, and two apartments for married students are located outside the campus. The Seoul campus is the home of the Business Faculty of the university. The graduate schools of finance, management and information & media management are located there. The total area of the Seoul campus is . The Munji campus, the former campus of

Information and Communications University Information and Communications University (ICU), established in 1998, was a Korean university focused primarily on research and engineering in the field of information technology. It was located in the city of Daejeon and comprised an engineeri ...

until its merger with KAIST, is located ca. away from the main campus. It has two dormitories, one for undergraduate students and the other for graduate students. The

Institute for Basic Science The Institute for Basic Science (IBS; ) is a Korean government-funded research institute that conducts basic science research and relevant pure basic research. IBS was established in November 2011 by the Lee Myung-bak administration as a res ...

(IBS) Center for Axion and Precision Physics Research is located here doing particle and nuclear physics related to

dark matter Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not a ...

and the Rare Isotope Science Project has the Superconducting Radio Frequency test facility.

Main library

The KAIST main library was established in 1971 as KAIS library, and it went through a merge and separation process with KIST library. It merged with KIT in March 1990. A contemporary 5 story building was constructed as the main library, and it is being operated with an annex library. The library uses the American LC Classification Schedule. The library underwent expansion and remodeling, which finished in 2018, to include conference rooms, collaboration rooms, and media rooms.

Event

KAIST's Seokrim Taeulje is a festival held by KAIST for three days every spring semester. The festival preparation committee under the undergraduate student council will be in charge of planning and execution, various food booths and experience booths will be opened, and stage events such as club performances and a song festival will be held. Also called the Cherry Blossom Festival, students eat strawberries on the law

Research

Seven KAIST Institutes (KIs) have been set up: the KI for the BioCentury, the KI for Information Technology Convergence, the KI for the Design of Complex Systems, the KI for Entertainment Engineering, the KI for the NanoCentury, the KI for Eco-Energy, and the KI for Urban Space and Systems. Each KI is operated as an independent research center at the level of a college, receiving support in terms of finance and facilities. In terms of ownership of intellectual property rights, KAIST holds 2,694 domestic patents and 723 international patents so far.

Electric vehicles

Researchers at KAIST have developed the Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV), a technique of powering vehicles through cables underneath the surface of the road via non-contact magnetic charging (a power source is placed underneath the road surface and power is wirelessly picked up on the vehicle itself). In July 2009 the researchers successfully supplied up to 60% power to a bus over a gap of from a power line embedded in the ground using power supply and pick up technology developed in-house.

Autonomous arms

In February 2018,

the Korea Times ''The Korea Times'' is the oldest of three English-language newspapers published daily in South Korea. It is a sister paper of the '' Hankook Ilbo'', a major Korean language daily; both are owned by Dongwha Enterprise, a wood-based manufacture ...

published an article which stated that KAIST was starting an AI weapons research project together with the Korean

arms manufacturer The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and ser ...

Hanwa. The allegations were of developing

lethal autonomous weapon Lethal autonomous weapons (LAWs) are a type of autonomous military system that can independently search for and engage targets based on programmed constraints and descriptions. LAWs are also known as lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), auto ...

s with Hanwa. This has led to researchers from 30 countries boycotting KAIST, which has denied existence of the program.

Academic rankings

In 2019

Thomson Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ( ) is a Canadian multinational media conglomerate. The company was founded in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where it is headquartered at the Bay Adelaide Centre. Thomson Reuters was created by the Thomson Corpora ...

named KAIST the 34th most

innovative Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entit ...

university in the world and the 2nd most innovative university in the Asia Pacific region. In 2022

QS World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for the ...

ranked KAIST 41st overall in the world and 12th within Asia, coming 16th in Material Sciences and 16th in Engineering and Technology. In the 2009 THE-QS World University Rankings (in 2010

Times Higher Education World University Rankings The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' (often referred to as the THE Rankings) is an annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli ...

and

parted ways to produce separate rankings) for Engineering & IT, the University was placed 21st in the world and 1st in Korea and was placed 69th overall. KAIST was again recognized as a number one University in Korea by

JoongAng Ilbo ''The JoongAng'', formally known as ''JoongAng Ilbo'', is a South Korean daily newspaper published in Seoul, South Korea. It is one of the three biggest newspapers in South Korea, and a newspaper of record for South Korea. The paper also pub ...

Review. In the year of 2009, KAIST's department of industrial design has also been listed in the top 30 Design Schools by Business Week. KAIST ranked the best university in

Republic of Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its ea ...

and the 7th university in

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

in the Top 100 Asian Universities list, the first regional ranking issued by THE-QS World Rankings. * QS University Subject Rankings (2017): ** 13th, materials science ** 15th,

civil engineering Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewa ...

and

structural engineering Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of civil engineering in which structural engineers are trained to design the 'bones and muscles' that create the form and shape of man-made structures. Structural engineers also must understand and cal ...

** 15th,

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, an ...

** 15th,

chemical engineering Chemical engineering is an engineering field which deals with the study of operation and design of chemical plants as well as methods of improving production. Chemical engineers develop economical commercial processes to convert raw materials int ...

** 17th, electrical engineering ** 18th, chemistry ** 33rd,

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

and

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems are composed by four components: task, people ...

** 44th, Physics & Astronomy ** 47th, Mathematics

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The Thes''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

ranked KAIST the 3rd best university in the world under the age of 50 years in its 2015 league table.

Notable faculty and staff

* Soon-dal Choi, electrical engineer; successfully developed and launched a satellite, KITSAT-3 * Dong-ho Cho, electrical engineer; developed online electric vehicle (OLEV), listed on

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...

's top fifty inventions of 2010 * Jun-ho Choi, discoverer of hSNF5 body protein involved in reproduction of Papilloma virus * Yang-Kyu Choi, developed world's smallest

terabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable uni ...

flash memory *

Cho Zang-hee Zang-Hee Cho, Ph.D., is a Korean neuroscientist who developed the first Ring- PET scanner and the scintillation detector BGO. More recently, Cho developed the first PET-MRI fusion molecular imaging device for neuro-molecular imaging. Educatio ...

, developed PET Imaging while at Colombia, developed Imaging for MRI/PET/CAT at KAIS, Later KAIST * James D. Cumming, Foreign Guest Professor, published first paper with Cho Zang-hee on MRI Imaging resolution improvement. * Heun Lee, identified mechanism behind hydrogen storage in ice particles * Ji-O Lee, chemist; identified structure of protein causing

sepsis Sepsis, formerly known as septicemia (septicaemia in British English) or blood poisoning, is a life-threatening condition that arises when the body's response to infection causes injury to its own tissues and organs. This initial stage is follo ...

* Sang-yup Lee, developed chip to diagnose

Wilson's disease Wilson's disease is a genetic disorder in which excess copper builds up in the body. Symptoms are typically related to the brain and liver. Liver-related symptoms include vomiting, weakness, fluid build up in the abdomen, swelling of the legs, ...

* Gi-hyong Gho, mathematician; developed world's first public key crypto system (PKCS) technology * Jong-kyong Jeong, identified cause of

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...

* Eunseong Kim, physicist; discovered new evidence for the existence of a supersolid * Jin-woo Kim, identified the cause behind senile retinal degeneration disease * Se-jin Kwan, aerospace engineer; successfully developed and tested a moon lander * Chang Hee Nam, physicist; developed attosecond pulse generation and compression technology * Gweng-su Rhim, developed next generation Transparent Resistive Random Access Memory (TRRAM) * Seung-man Yang, developed new photonics crystal-based optofluidic technology * Yoon-tae Young, physicist; first to observe proper function of

complexin Complexin (also known as synaphin) refers to a one of a small set of eukaryotic cytoplasmic neuronal proteins which binds to the SNARE protein complex (''SNAREpin'') with a high affinity. These are called synaphin 1 and 2. In the presence of Ca2 ...

protein to control neuron communication * Giltsu Choi, photobiologist; identified key genes regulating seed germination in response to light in plants. * Dan Keun Sung, electronic engineer

Notable alumni

Academia

* Ryong Ryoo, chemist

Science and technology

* Yi So-Yeon, first Korean to fly in space * Tony Kim, founder of ProtoPie

Business

* Sung-kyun Na, founder and CEO of Neowiz, Korea's first internet supplier (KAIST graduate school) * Jungju Kim,

NEXON Nexon Co., Ltd. is a global video game publisher, listed in Japan, that specializes in online Virtual World games for PCs, consoles and mobile. Nexon is one of the world’s ten largest interactive game companies based on market capitalization a ...

CEO * Hae-jin Lee, Next Human Network (

NHN Corporation NHN Corp. () is a Korean IT company that started its business as a game company called Hangame in 1999. Currently its main businesses can be categorized as Cloud, Fin-Tech (cross-border e-commerce, payment), Entertainment (game, webtoon, musi ...

) * Chang-han Kim,

PUBG ''PUBG: Battlegrounds'' (previously known as ''PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'') is a battle royale game developed by PUBG Studios and published by Krafton. The game, which was inspired by the Japanese film '' Battle Royale'' (2000), is base ...

CEO

Entertainment

* So-jung Kim, Singer * Jang-won Lee, Singer (

Peppertones Peppertones (Hangul: 페퍼톤스), is a Korean rock band formed in 2003 by Shin Jae-pyung and Lee Jang-won. The pair met as computer science students at KAIST in Daejeon. The band's first EP album ''A Preview'' was released in 2004. They releas ...

) * Jae-pyung Shin, Singer (

) * So-hee Yoon, Actress

Notes and references

* The Times-QS World University Rankings 2009 - KAIST 69th overall, 21st in the field of Engineering/Technology

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kaist Daejeon National universities and colleges in South Korea Engineering universities and colleges in South Korea 1971 establishments in South Korea Educational institutions established in 1971

History

Timeline

Academics

Academics

Students

Organization

Campus

Main library

Event

Research

Electric vehicles

Autonomous arms

Academic rankings

Notable faculty and staff

Notable alumni

Academia

Science and technology

Business

Entertainment

Notes and references

See also

External links