Sungkyunkwan University

For over six hundred years, Sungkyunkwan University has held an extraordinarily special place in the history of Korea. Sungkyunkwan’s contributions to the education and training of royal scholar-officials by preeminent Korean philosophers have laid the foundation for numerous national advancements. Since its establishment, the school’s educational tradition has emphasized the four principles of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom.

We believe these are values which can carry our university to greater heights in the globalized world, especially when pursuing innovation with humanity and integrity. The complementary principles of mutual understanding, respect for peers, striving toward the common good, and unity; have become increasingly important as the demands of modern life challenge us on a daily basis.

Sungkyunkwan University has also evolved to incorporate a modern educational paradigm that prioritizes cutting-edge research and innovative education. This has led to important advances in the arts, sciences, medicine, and technology in ways that allow greater synergy with other leading universities and institutions throughout the world.

Great achievement comes from putting in the effort to achieve greatness. Sungkyunkwan University strives to become a model university globally by upholding the traditional values of humanity along with the pursuit of modern contributions for humankind. We aim to raise the bar in research and education through international collaboration based upon these principles. We invite you to join us as we strive to reach this summit.

VISION 2020 embodies every SKKU student’s dream, will, and destiny to make SKKU a global leading university. Our primary goals are to offer world-class education, produce exemplary research achievements, secure the university’s reputation in domestically and abroad, and emerge as a global hub university with the best knowledge and human resources network.

To successfully establish VISION 2020, SKKU will pursue ‘The 5 Core Strategies’ and ‘5 Divisional Strategies’. The 5 Major Top Strategies are strategic, selection-and-concentration tasks that will help establish SKKU’s leading position in various fields, This in-turn will highlight SKKU’s unique color by promoting those that will raise SKKU’s competitiveness to a higher, global level.

The Strategic Tasks for 5 Major Areas are the general tasks that influence SKKU’s competitiveness. There are 55 strategic tasks over five major areas: Brand Power, Educational Innovation, Faculty/Research/Industry-University Cooperation, Innovative Management, and New Campus.

Sungkyunkwan University was founded at the beginning of the Joseon Dynasty in 1398 as the highest national educational institute in the early years of the Joseon Dynasty in Korea. As the oldest university in East Asia, it has fostered leaders of our society for over 600 years.

'SKKU's main ideology, pronounced 'Su-Gi-Chi-In', teaches that SKKU students strive to perfect themselves as leaders and contribute to our society. This ideology is the fundamental principle by which SKKU brought up leaders of our society for over 600 years,thus contributing to evolution of our society. Sungkyunkwan University,' continuously strives to integrate its founding ation philosophy with the modern technology in order with a view to cultivateing global graduate’ s talents who will lead the 21st century.

Old Sungkyunkwan was founded over 600 years ago by royal decree to promote education the scholarship in Confucianism. As nation's highest educational institution,Old Sungkyunkwan went through vicissitudes change with the country it served over the centuries.

Though a long history alone cannot guarantee the excellence of an institution, the rich culture, which exudes from a long radition, is surely a unique and valuable asset of the University. What the University has achieved in the past fifty years meets and exceeds that of the preceding history. We take pride in the University's innovative spirit; as a result of the long efforts to place natural sciences on an equal footing with our strong foundation in humanities, we now operate two campuses: the Humanities and Social Sciences Campus and the Natural Sciences Campus.

Based on a highly successful partnership with Samsung which has generously funded several core initiatives, the University has been rapidly developing and prospering since 1996.