Gachon University earns top spot as school with most growth in JoongAng University Rankings
Published: 28 Nov. 2025, 15:55
Updated: 28 Nov. 2025, 18:18
![Gachon University President Lee Gil-ya, center, holds a wafer at the Nanofab Center on the first floor of the university’s College of Semiconductor. [GACHON UNIVERSITY]](https://koreaseafood.online/data/photo/2025/11/28/6618c074-d681-4095-b23f-1016ca2a54c0.jpg)
Gachon University President Lee Gil-ya, center, holds a wafer at the Nanofab Center on the first floor of the university’s College of Semiconductor. [GACHON UNIVERSITY]
Geem Zong-woo, a professor in the Department of Smart City at Gachon University, studies the Harmony Search algorithm, which converts natural phenomena and human behavior into mathematical models to solve urban problems. This year, he was named in Stanford University’s “World’s Top 2% Scientists List.”
Since Gachon University's merger with Gachon Medical Science University, Kyungwon University, Gachon Gil University and Kyungwon Junior College in 2012, it has hired 1,153 faculty members to date.
Of the 68 current Gachon University faculty members who have been selected as one of the world’s top 2 percent scientists, 48 were hired after the merger. As the number of highly capable professors grew, so did the university’s ability to attract research funding. External research funding, which stood at 27.6 billion won ($18.83 million) at the time of the merger, increased 3.7-fold to 102.3 billion won last year.
After more than a decade of strengthening its faculty following the merger, Gachon University ranked No. 1 in the “Universities with the Biggest Growth” category of the 2025 JoongAng University Rankings. This year, JoongAng Ilbo introduced this category to evaluate universities’ mid- to long-term development.
The evaluation measured the average rankings of 38 universities that consistently participated in the university assessment over the past ten years, comparing the five years from 2015 to 2019 with the five years from 2020 to 2025, and quantified each university’s degree and rate of improvement.
.
Eight indicators were used: external research funding per professor, Science Citation Index per full-time faculty member, Field-Weighted Citation Impact, employment rate, sustained employment rate, dropout rate, reputation and the ratio of international students to total enrollment.
The results showed that growing universities shared a common focus on strengthening research capacity and building systematic support systems.
Dongguk University, which is ranked fourth, introduced bold performance-based incentives to improve research quality.
After receiving the university’s outstanding paper award in 2019, Professor Choi Young-hee of Dongguk University's College of Pharmacy received three rounds of support totaling 130 million won. A paper on new drug development by Choi, published in 2022, appeared in a leading journal ranked in the top 0.5 percent by citation rate.
Kookmin University — the No. 2 institution in the rankings — has established a virtuous cycle by commercializing core technologies through its technology holding company and reinvesting the revenue into research and startup support.
The analysis revealed particularly strong improvement among universities in the Seoul metropolitan area. Eight of the top ten growing universities — Gachon University, Kookmin University, Dongguk University, Sejong University, Soongsil University, Konkuk University, Ewha Womans University and Sookmyung Women’s University in that order — are located in the capital region.
These universities saw across-the-board gains in research capacity and student outcomes. Gachon University ranked first in three indicators: Science Citation Index per professor, external research funding per professor and sustained employment rate.
“These achievements were made possible by early promotion policies for high-performing faculty and incentive programs linked to citation impact,” said a Gachon University spokesperson. Improved student perceptions also reduced dropout rates from students retaking or repeating admissions.
Two regional universities ranked among the top ten growing institutions: Konyang University was No. 3, and Jeonbuk National University was No. 6.
Konyang University, which has focused heavily on medicine, health sciences and biotechnology while emphasizing student education and job placement support, saw marked improvements in indicators such as the Science Citation Index, the dropout rate and the sustained employment rate. The university operates an undergraduate researcher program beginning in the third year, fostering active collaboration between undergraduates, advisors and graduate students.
This year, a third-year biomedical engineering student was listed as a co-author in an international journal in the Science Citation Index. The university also reports high sustained employment rates, including 93.9 percent in Medical Information Technology Engineering and 96.4 percent in Pharmaceutics & Biotechnology.
Jeonbuk National University has excelled in educational conditions and student experience, ranking first among regional national universities for five consecutive years since 2019 in the “Korean Standard–Service Quality Index,” which surveys student satisfaction.
Research investment and startup support are also robust: in this year’s comprehensive evaluation, the university ranked third in internal research funding per professor and fifth in startup support funding over the past three years.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY LEE HOO-YEON,HEO JEONG-WON AND OH SAM-GWON [[email protected]]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.
Standards Board Policy (0/250자)