SNUT Goes Extra Mile to Be
World-Class University
Focuses on beefing up collaboration with industry, R&D

Seoul National University of Technology (SNUT), celebrating its centennial anniversary in 2020, is striving to take a leap to become a world-class university in the 21st century.
SNUT President Yoon Jin-sik said, "According to the Vision 'SNUT Action 2010,'we will continue striving to meet our '100 tasks' which focus on intensify the collaboration between industry and the academic community, internationalization, and R&D." Eouidong Technical and Supplementary School, the predecessor of SNUT, was established in April, 1910 by a royal decree from King Gojong, who staked the national destiny on the idea that "Industry Establishes the Country" near the end of the Joseon Dynasty. SNUT was reorganized into Gyeongseong Public Technical School, Gyeonggi Technical College, Gyeonggi Technical and Open University. Finally, it was reborn into Seoul National University of Technology in April 1993. True to the tenet of its foundation, SNUT has graduated more than 70,000 people of talent and has helped lay a solid foundation for the development of the nation.
SNUT has grown into a large-scale university with a spacious campus of 530,000 square meters, 6 colleges, 32 departments, 6 graduate schools, and a student enrollment of 14,000.
With modern society, characterized by an age of uncertainty and change, in mind, the nation has expedited its efforts to develop new growth engines that will serve as "bread winners" to drive the national economy for the next-generation. "SNUT is willing to be the center of personnel training and R&D for the new growth engines, and it will make strenuous efforts to go the extra mile to produce the leaders who will guide us all in the 21st century," SNUT President Yoon said.
Under the SNUT Action 2010, the university aims to make rapid strides by implementing 100 tasks, including informatization of an educational system and the realization of an e-Campus. SNUT has become a full-fledged four-year university offering a variety of disciplines ranging from those related to industrial technologies to humanities, social/natural studies and art.
Nearly half of the enrolled students are the recipients of scholarships, 10 in-house and 26 outside scholarships.
SNUT is introducing an engineering education certification program, similar to the international standardization certificates like ISO9000. Students who finish the engineering education certification program are certified as persons of talent who have underwent high-quality education at an educational institution with systematic operations. If SNUT joins the international certification program "Washington Accord,"students would be given more opportunities to land jobs abroad so that they could serve as international engineering experts there upon graduation.
The university is endeavoring to cultivate future key human resources in such next-generation new growth engine industries as information, nano-technology, environment, culture and biotechnology.
A team headed by Prof. Choi Se-wan of the Department of Control & Instrumental Engineering Power and Electronics Lab, won the 2003 international new and renewable energy competition organized by the U.S. Energy Department and IEEE. The SNUT team outperformed the participants from 21 countries, including Texas A&M University, the winner of the previous contest, to grab two of the three prizes put up for grabs plus $30,000 in prize money. With the money from the U.S. Energy Department, the team is working on a new project.
Information technology is becoming a prerequisite factor for the development of digital cultural contents industries and the Internet business sector as well as biotechnology, nano-technology and environmental technology. With regard to this trend, such departments of the undergraduate school as Industrial & Information Systems Engineering, Electronic & Information Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, and Media Technology departments offer education on information technology in multimedia technology and production information sectors. On-the-job training is conducted through overseas prestigious institutions, and IT Design Graduate School and IT Public Policy and Information Technology Graduate School graduate talented manpower.
Designated as an educational institute for cultivating manpower in the energy sector by Korea Energy Management Corp., the university graduates are manpower specializing in the development of energies.
SNUT has become a leading institution responsible for the mid- and long-term development of knowledge-intensive technologies. The university has been assigned the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy-supported research on the development of nano fabrication equipment using ion beam. It will play a role in raising a national competitive edge in the nano-technology sector.
SNUT has taken the lead in practices such as co-operative education and cultivating the elites needed in the fields of industries.
The Capstone Design Business Corps was established with support from the MOCIE in 2001. Korea Industrial Technology Foundation has made efforts to spread education on Capstone Design to universities across the nation since 2003. SMUT operates the Capstone-Design Program under which undergraduate students plan, design and manufacture a product on his or her own, based on theories they have learned, instead of presenting theses.
SNUT has maintained business-school collaboration ties with 266 Korean concerns, including KT, as well as 15 foreign companies, including Sharp of Japan. The university is strengthening on-the-site practical training based on business-school collaboration. nw

Seoul National University of Technology President Yoon Jin-sik
Views of Seoul National University of Technology (SNUT) campus