Institute of Korean Philosophy and Culture at College of Confucian Studies & Eastern Philosophy, Selected for ‘K-Academic Expansion Project’

College of Confucian Studies & Eastern Philosophy’s Institute of Korean Philosophy and Culture (IKPC, Director: So-Jeong Park) is selected for ‘K-Academic Expansion Project’ organized by the Academy of Korean Studies.

The ‘K-Academic Expansion Project’ will be run from July 2021 for over the next 5 years. It plans to develop Korean studies and researches overseas by selecting a total of 10 institutes in different sectors: ①Philosophy and religion ②History and folklore ③Literature and culture ④Arts ⑤Political diplomacy and economic society and by developing/distributing online contents. Among five sectors, the Institute of Korean Philosophy and Culture is in charge of ‘Philosophy and religion’ part and receives a total of 5 billion KRW (1 billion/year). It is a large-scale project that is rare in the field of humanities, and it is an encouraging achievement that has been recognized for its educational and research capabilities in Korean philosophy.

For this project, the Institute of Korean Philosophy and Culture established a “3B (Build, Between, Beyond)” vision to rebuild Korean philosophy, connect between researchers and learners at home and abroad, and participate in universal philosophical discourse under the name of “Build Bridge: Communication and Spread of Korean Philosophy.”

Thus, it plans to develop 50 courses (10 courses a year for 5 years) under the four criteria ① Build a foundation of Korean philosophy, ② Send domestic researches, ③ Response and interact with overseas demand, ④ Expand Korean philosophy to the world.

The curriculum consists of Elementary - Intermediate - Advanced courses courses in and international and Korean languages. It provides subtitles in 3 languages for all lectures. The contents will be posted on domestic online platform and international online platform, including Coursera.

Additionally, a total number of participants over 5 years were about 150 people in this project, including 1 research director, 13 participating researchers, 4 editors, 5 academic future generations, translating company, video project producer, online education content designer, domestic and international scholars who participate in producing courses and joint research, and other experts. Especially, it plans to appoint 5 researchers who are specialized in Korean studies and currently working at universities in the U.S., Hong Kong, China, Germany, and Romania as the co-researchers and appoint Jeong-Keun Shin, Dean of College of Confucian Studies & Eastern Philosophy at SKKU, and Alan K.L. Chan, Provost of The Chinese University of Hong Kong as the directors to increase the level of completion. Besides, seven other universities in 6 countries (U.S., China, Hong Kong, Germany, France, and Romania) signed academic exchanges with research institutes related to Korean philosophy, and established a foundation for successful implementation of the project.

Professor So-Jeong Park, who is the director of the project said that “Korean philosophy is a ‘living tradition’ that has constantly re-organized based on its identity and evolved in ‘cultural boundaries’ and we will create balanced views and send Korean philosophy education contents to the world. We would like to take the initiatives to establish an education and research models that can create synergy by interacting with Korean philosophy research abroad and at home.”

Further information regarding this project can be found at the Institute of Korean Philosophy and Culture’s website: https://swb.skku.edu/korphil/index.do