KAIST rated Asia's most innovative university for third year

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

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Tue, October 3, 2023 | 06:28

Tech

KAIST rated Asia's most innovative university for third year

Posted : 2018-06-05 17:00

Updated : 2018-06-05 21:49

KAIST President Shin Sung-chul presents the university's future vision at the institution's Daejeon Campus on March 20. Shin pledged to make KAIST one of the top ten ranking universities in the world by 2031. / Yonhap file (Courtesy of KAIST)

By Lee Suh-yoon

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) came in first in Reuters' annual ranking of the "most innovative" universities in the Asia Pacific region this year. KAIST also topped the list in 2016 and 2017.

According to a Reuters press release, Tuesday, the list – compiled in partnership with Clarivate Analytics – seeks to "identify and rank the educational institutions in the region doing the most to advance science, invent new technologies and power new markets and industries."

Universities were ranked by mostly quantitative indicators such as the number of patents filed and academic papers published.

KAIST researchers filed 1,000 patents – more than any other Asian institution – between 2011 and 2016. Almost 80 percent of the patents were successfully granted. It also scored relatively high for the commercial impact of its new inventions.

The University of Tokyo came in second, followed by POSTECH, another Korean university that specializes in science and engineering. The list, comprised of 75 institutions in total, included 20 institutions from Korea, 27 from China and 19 from Japan.

KAIST is leading innovation in the fields of robotics and AI, and is set to host an "AI World Cup" event with AI-controlled robot players in August.

The institute was founded by the government in 1971 as the nation's first science and engineering academic institution. Its main campus is located in Daejeon, 150 km south of Seoul.

sylee@ktimes.com