The Robust Transformation of
South Korean Universities

Asian universities are gradually realizing the importance of being recognized as a global entity. There are several ways to measure a university’s strength, but the university ranking compiled by the Times Higher Education (THE) is perhaps the most popular benchmark for global universities.

With THE’s Asia University Ranking 2019, many Chinese universities improved their rank as expected, but some South Korean universities took a quantum leap ahead. In fact, South Korean universities outnumbered Japanese universities in the list of top 30 universities in Asia.

To understand the strategies adopted by the universities that significantly improved Asia’s global presence in recent years, we conducted a survey and picked universities that saw a drastic jump in their rank in Asia. Yonsei University, which we feature in this volume, is one of them.

Yonsei University, one of the prestigious private universities in South Korea, had experienced and recovered from a huge drop in its rank. In the survey, we learnt that they identified their weakness and systematically implemented countermeasures. We believe Yonsei University’s case study has insights for any university working toward transforming itself and improving its rank.