Since its inception, Hanyang University has established itself as one of Korea’s most prestigious private universities by overcoming constant challenges. Under the recent slogan, ‘The Best for a Better World,’ Hanyang has continued its challenge of becoming a university that ‘serves to make the world a better place,’ and, to become ‘a prestigious university in the world.’

In the face of new challenges in 2020, we would like to take a look back at the 2019 year of Hanyang University to share in its achievements and key issues. 

 

 

Hanyang University, which was established in 1939 as the Dong-A Engineering Institute under the philosophy of ‘Love in Deed and Truth,’ celebrated its 80th anniversary last year. Under the founder’s will of ‘serving the nation through technology,’ the 330,000 alumni that Hanyang University has fostered played a key role in the Miracle on the Han River and has served as the engine of Korea’s growth. Today, we are making efforts to make the world a better place across the world, beyond the borders of this country.


 


To celebrate the 80th anniversary, Hanyang University held various events, such as the outdoor performance La Traviata opera at the Amphitheater in Seoul Campus and an exhibition at Hanyang University Museum which presented the 80 year story of the university’s development.  

In addition, in order to transform the Hanyang University campus into an international academic exchange venue, Hanyang opened international academic conferences during the past year, such as the 80th Anniversary International Academic Event Promoting the Voice-Language Recognition Science Lab, The Global Symposium on Population Aging and Low Fertility, The 5th International Conference on the Interface between Statistics and Engineering, The International Conference for Advanced Cathodes in Lithium & Sodium-Ion Batteries, and more.These conferences were a great opportunity for many prominent scholars at home and abroad to visit Hanyang University, freely discuss academic issues, and witness the developments that Hanyang has made.

   

The Inauguration of the 15th President Kim Woo-Seung

In February of 2019, Professor Kim Woo-Seung (College of Engineering Sciences, Department of Mechanical Engineering) was inaugurated as the 15th President of Hanyang University, creating a great change in the leadership of Hanyang University.

In his inauguration speech, President Kim Woo-Seung expressed his intention “to establish a foundation for a new leap forward by inheriting the tradition of Hanyang University,” while emphasizing that he will “achieve innovation in the education·research·academic·industrial cooperation cluster that will lead global competition through the pragmatic academics of Hanyang University.”

Awarded the Hongjo Order of Service Merit in 2011 for suggesting research·academic·industrial cooperation campus model, President Kim Woo-Seung, a specialist in Korea’s academic-intellectual cooperation, played a major role in Hanyang University ERICA Campus becoming the center of industry university cooperation in Korea. His inauguration as president is an opportunity for Hanyang to reach sustainable development through cooperation with corporations.
 

Improvement in External Evaluations

Hanyang University was ranked 150th in the 2019 QS(Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings organized by the British university evaluation QS, from which Hanyang was able to reaffirm its reputation as one of the most prestigious universities in the world by continuing its upward trend in the external evaluation.
 


In addition, Hanyang University ranked 24th on the 2019 QS University Rankings for Asian Universities, confirming its status as one of the highest-ranking universities in Asia. In the specific fields of study, ‘Civil & Structural Engineering’ ranked 48th in the world and ‘Hospitality & Leisure Management’ ranked 50th in the world, proving that Hanyang University has been at the highest level of research and education in the world. Not only has Hanyang been prominent in its engineering fields, the university’s traditional asset, such as in ‘Chemical Engineering (61st in the world),’ ‘Architecture/Built Environment (63rd in the world),’ ‘Mechanical Engineering (69th in the world),’ ‘Materials Science (72nd in the world),’ but also by ranking in other fields from the humanities and social sciences, such as in ‘Modern Languages 98th in the world)’ and in ‘Communication & Media Studies (98th in the world).’

Furthermore, Hanyang University Seoul Campus was ranked 3rd, and the ERICA Campus ranked 10th on the JoongAng Ilbo University Evaluation, which is the most prestigious university evaluation in Korea. This marks the first time in Korea in which a university’s main campus as well as its branch campus have both placed within the top 10. 

 

2019 Research Results : Artificial Muscle, 5G Autonomous Driving, HCR

Hanyang University's research continued in 2019 and made a lot of achievements in the areas of future industries, which is an area of considerable value.

On March 11th of 2019, Hanyang University and LG Uplus, a major telecommunications company in South Korea, demonstrated the world’s first autonomous, self-driving automobile using 5th generation (5G) mobile communication. This self-driving automobile (A1), made in cooperation with Hanyang University’s ACE Lab and LG Uplus, led by Professor Sunwoo Myung-ho, a well-renowned global authority in autonomous driving, succeeded in driving about 8 km in Seoul for 20 minutes. This experiment was conducted, not in a simulated test environment nor a suburb with few vehicles, but in a crowded urban environment, demonstrating the improvement in autonomous, self-driving automobiles and communication technology
 While Hanyang University was showing off its technical skills with its 5G automatic driving demonstration in the field of self-driving which has the world’s attention, in another future technologies field, Professor Kim Sun-jeong of the Department of Biomedical Engineering led a team of multinationals including Professor Ray Bauman of the University of Texas at Dallas in the U.S to develop “sheath-run” artificial muscles. These artificial human muscles are up to 40 times stronger than natural muscles, and due to their relatively low production cost, they have the potential for commercial use. The results of the experiment were published in Science, the world’s top scientific journal.

Moreover, Professor Sun Yang-kook of the Department of Energy Engineering and Professor Kim Ki-Hyun of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering were named Highly Cited Researchers (HCRs) for 2019 by Clarivate Analytics. HCRs represent the top 1% of researchers who receive the most thesis citations by other authors, which proves that the research of these two Hanyang University professors have great influence throughout the world. Professor Sun Yang-kook is one of the most acclaimed researchers of Hanyang University and has been named an HCR four times since 2016 in the material science field, specifically secondary batteries which are at the core of the development of the mobile industry. Professor Kim Ki-Hyun was selected as an HCR for the first time in 2019, but because he has been in the spotlight within the environmental field, his selection seems rather late.

We would like to thank every researcher who has helped raise Hanyang University’s prestige with their outstanding accomplishments in 2019 and are looking forward to their wonderful performance across various fields in 2020. 

 

Building a Foundation of Integrated Research for the Future: MEB, IUCC, Hanyang Humanities Enhancement Center

For Hanyang University, 2019 has been a year of building a collective research system that has the keywords “Convergence” and “Sustainability.” 

Under the Industry-University-Research Cooperation Foundation’s supervision, integrated research centers of three different characteristics were established for the first time in 2019: the Hanyang Medicine-Engineering-Bio Center (MEB Center) that conducts Life Science research, clinical research, and pharmaceutical development; Hanyang Industry-University Cooperation Center (IUCC) that focuses on constructing a university-led industry-academic cooperation platform; and the Hanyang Humanities Enhancement Center that promotes differentiated education and research models. Together these three centers based on the 4th Industrial Revolution allow for sustainable humanities studies.

The leaders of each Hanyang MEB Center were chosen from the full-time faculty of the Colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy, Engineering, and Natural Sciences. The members at each center were required to be filled by at least five full-time faculty members from at least two different fields, including the field of medicine.  Hanyang IUCC is organized mainly of the research teams from the fields of engineering and natural sciences, but researchers from other areas such as humanities, social sciences, entertainment and sports, and medicine were allowed to participate as cooperative researchers of integrated research. This makes more integrated research across various fields possible. 

In addition, the Hanyang Humanities Enhancement Center has made it possible for humanities to be at the center of academic integration in the era of the 4th industrial revolution by forming research teams composed of members of the humanities, social sciences, and entertainment and sports, and also by letting researchers of engineering, natural sciences, and medicine work together as co-researchers.
  

2019 Best University for CEO Cultivation
 

According to a survey of the number of CEOs by graduating university, it was found that the number of enterprises run by Hanyang alumni is the largest with 10,213 companies as of December 2018. Hanyang also ranked 4th in the top 1,000 companies, 5th in the top 500 companies, and has remained in second to third place for seven consecutive years, maintaining its position in the upper rankings.

Additionally, the result of the “practical academics” that we’ve been pursuing was made clear as Hanyang University ranked 1st in the number of alumni-led start-up companies which numbered 2,153.
  

Declaring an Eco-Friendly Campus: Plastic-free Eco Campus

Hanyang University’s activities for The Best for a Better World campaign continued last year. Following the lead of the Hanyang University Social Innovation Center, it continued social innovation campaign by not only adhering to the distinctions of the UN’s 17-Sustainable Development Goals (17-SDGs) but also by declaring widely that it will become an eco-friendly campus to help to protect the earth’s environment.

In June 2019, Hanyang University and Greenfund signed an MOU to Build an Eco-friendly Campus and shared thoughts on conducting environmental campaigns to build an eco-friendly campus and cultivate talented individuals with informed knowledge of the environment through the sharing of environment-related research and technology information. Hanyang University announced that it will become a plastic-free campus by decreasing the use of single-use and plastic products on campus.

Such activities are linked with students’ active participation, so the Student Union has opened a group called Environment Supporters for the systematic development of an eco-friendly campus.

Hanyang University provided free tumblers to students to promote the plastic-free campus campaign, declared the 17th of every month Green Day, and continued environmental protection campaigns such as holding a contest to establish a more eco-friendly campus and asking on-campus businesses to use fewer paper receipts (issuing electronic receipts instead) in order to be the Best for a Better World.
 

The year 2019 was a year to look back on our footsteps by celebrating the 80th anniversary of Hanyang University and a time when we gained momentum to become a more prestigious global university in the near future. Using our momentum, Hanyang University’s great challenge to make a better world will continue in 2020.

Global News Team
global@hanyang.ac.kr