POSTECH News

POSTECH Reaffirms its Place as Korea’s Top Science and Engineering University

2019-11-17 1,086

POSTECH ranked first in both natural sciences and engineering in the 2019 JoongAng Ilbo University Rankings according to the news agency’s announcement on November 16, 2019. POSTECH excelled in the areas of student start-up and technology transfer. Since 2017, the school has markedly outperformed other Korean universities in technology transfer revenue, industry-academic research cooperation, and inventions and patents.

In particular, JoongAng Ilbo highlighted POSTECH’s support for student start-ups in detail through the medical device company “MiDAS H & T,” founded by Seyun Chang, an alumnus of POSTECH’s department of materials science and engineering. Chang developed a pressure sensor for patients who suffer from bed sores with the help from both Professor Unyong Jeong and POSTECH who provided him with KRW 100 million (USD 85,000) over four years and a laboratory space of 115㎡. In his interview, Chang stated, “Thanks to the school, I was able to study and start my company as much as I wanted.”

Like Chang’s case, POSTECH is putting in much effort into supporting student start-ups through initiatives like start-up fund for every student and many others. In the areas of professor’s research, revenue from technology transfers to companies was robust, amounting to more than KRW 32 million (USD 27,500) per professor in the recent three years.

POSTECH has promoted student start-ups by establishing an entrepreneurship minor and launching support organizations such as APGC-Lab in partnership with the Association of POSTECH Grown Companies (APGC), an association of companies founded by POSTECH alumni.
Recently, a student entrepreneurship team was additionally created to systematically assist student start-ups.

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In terms of technology transfers, POSTECH has made a profit of KRW 8.7 billion (USD 7.3 million) from 80 such cases from 2016 to 2018. It is the fifth highest amongst Korean universities, but the profit per transfer reaches KRW 1.6 billion (USD 91,000), making it the highest in Korea.* This shows that the industrial applicability of the transferred technology is very high.

The annual JoongAng Ilbo University Rankings is divided into the comprehensive and field-specific rankings. POSTECH, a science and engineering school, is only evaluated in the field-specific rankings.

*Source: ‘2016-2018 University Technology Transfer Status’ by Office of Kyu Hwan Kim, a Member of the Korean National Assembly).