According to the "2022 QS World University Rankings," announced by the United Kingdom's university evaluation institution, Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), in last June, PNU ranked 601~650th. We fell more than 20 spots compared to "2021 QS World University Rankings," and it is 200 spots lower than the 401~450th ranking in the first evaluation in 2012. 

The "QS World University Ranking" is an annual university evaluation table announced by the QS, considered one of the "three largest World University Rankings" along with the UK's THE and China's ARWU University Ranking. There are six evaluation criteria: Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation, Faculty Student, Citations per Faculty, International Faculty, and International Students. Academic Reputation, so-called "The Reputation of University," takes the most considerable weight for evaluation.

In 2012, PNU proclaimed the goal of becoming one of the world's top 100 universities. The "PNU Vision 2030," which was declared at the time, is mainly about becoming a hub university in Asia by 2020 and completing its vision as one of the top 100 universities in the world by 2030 through foundation furtherance. As a result, at the following year's QS evaluation, three areas, including Chemical Engineering, Pharmacy, and Communicology, were included in the top 200 among the national universities. In 2015, which is three years later, PNU made a noticeable performance such as moving up in the world rankings from 451~460th to 431~440th. 

However, except for the 2015 result, the PNU’s QS ranking drew a downward curve constantly for ten years and ranked the lowest this year with 601~650th. Despite the development plan to be the world’s top 100 universities from 10 years ago, we are getting farther away from the top 100. On the other hand, domestic universities such as Seoul National University (SNU) ranked 36th, Korea University (KU) ranked 74th, and Yonsei University (YU) ranked 79th. In the “QS Academic Evaluation Ranking,” PNU has been able to obtain good results in the past four years, failing 131 ranks in the engineering and technology field, falling more than 82 spots in the life and medical field, and falling 83 positions in the nature and science field. 

■The Absence of a Reinforcement System in Research Force and Reputation.

The University Administration is also familiar with the decline of PNU's "QS World University Ranking." According to the PNU's Office of Planning, there are four reasons for the decrease in "QS World University Ranking." First, our university lacked a "comprehensive direction setting" for external evaluation such as QS evaluation; the second was a lack of strategy for "strengthening research power." The third was the absence of a so-called "reputation management system" to manage the university's image, and the last reason was that we did not analyze and respond to these problems quickly. 

Meanwhile, PNU’s Office of Research indicates the decrease in study resources according to the change in the external environment for the decline of PNU’s “QS World University Ranking.” In addition to the decline in the total population in Korea, the external environment changes of the metropolitan area centralization have led to a vicious cycle of poor performance as local talented people and excellent faculty members left. According to the data analyzed by the office of research, research performance, such as the papers per professor, was not much different from SNU and YU. However, the number of researchers at PNU is 4,000, and at Kyungpook National University was 3,500 in 2021, while there were 8,900 researchers at SNU, 6,200 at YU, and 5,100 at KU. It showed a difference of 1.2 to 2 times or more.  

■Reset the Goal of Entering the Top 300.

Currently, the PNU Office of Planning aims to enter the top 300 of the QS World University Ranking and place ten academic units in the top 100 by 2025 to reform as a world-class research-oriented university. To achieve the goal, in November last year, PNU established a response strategy for each department corresponding to the QS World University Evaluation and established a response system in which the Planning and Evaluation Department does general monitoring as a department overseeing all.

According to this response system, our university is focusing on reexamining the research fields, including analyzing the operational performance of the research support system. “Increasing Research Power Initiative” is established by the related department, the Office of Research, the library set up a “Researcher ID” management system used interchangeably, and the Section of Research Promotion encourages researcher ID registration. 

Moreover, PNU has established a public relations management system for research results to enhance the university’s image and strengthen its status. PNU will build a Database (DB) of domestic and foreign researchers and companies in the short term. In the long term, PNU will strengthen publicity by producing and distributing content that will show our university’s strengths, such as various achievements and excellent academic fields. In addition, it manages the number of faculties and students to increase the acquisition rate of full-time faculty and improve educational conditions through comparative analysis with other universities. PNU will continue to recruit foreign faculty and international students to raise international research cooperation and lay the foundations for evaluation improvement. 

■For National Balanced Improvement, the participation of members is desperate. 

The Office of Research has already distributed online English publicity content that introduces 29 excellent theses (28 professors) through foreign public channels and research channels to promote outstanding research performances abroad. Yu In-Gwon, the head of the PNU's Research Office, said, "As a result of massive publicity of research results since last year, Altmetric, a representative indicator measuring the influence of the paper, scored 87 points. It is 335% higher than the optimum figure. In addition to this publicity plan, we are also considering ways to improve research resources and infrastructure through ‘PNU Research 2040' to raise research power in the long term."

However, whether these efforts alone will raise the QS World University Rankings is unclear. It is not enough to prevent the leakage of superb faculties and talented people. The concentration of the metropolitan area is a serious agenda item as balanced development emerges as a national task. In addition to urging the government to prepare policies to ease the metropolitan area concentration, many point out that the interest and participation of our university members are more important than anything else.

Hwang Sung-Wook (Prof. of Media & Communication, PNU) said, "First, all campus members should be aware of a problem and form a bond of sympathy and realize that improvements are needed. The University Administration must develop systematic and bold policy changes and countermeasures. The colleges should continue to make efforts in terms of research and education. It is time for PNU, a key engine for regional development, to urgently move and sow the seeds of leaps based on an improved campus environment to raise its Reputation."

Reporter Kim Ye-Shin

Translated by Lee Su-Hyun