Professors Chulmo Koo and Namho Chung of the Smart Tourism Education Platform (STEP), Jin-Woo Bae of the Department of Biology, and Choong Seon Hong, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Computer Science, were named among the 2025 Highly Cited Researchers (HCRs) by Clarivate Analytics

Kyung Hee’s four HCR selections place the University third among private comprehensive universities in Korea. The University continues to lead the country in the social sciences, producing the highest number of HCRs in this category with Professors Chulmo Koo and Namho Chung. Professor Koo is widely recognized as the first scholar to define the concept and scope of smart tourism. His seminal 2016 paper, “Smart Tourism,” is credited with establishing fundamental research guidelines for the field amid rapid advances in artificial intelligence and information technology. Professor Koo continues to focus on sustainable smart tourism and hospitality education platforms.

Professor Chung has published over 200 papers in domestic and international academic journals. His main research areas include information technology management, tourist behavior & psychology, and tourism information. He is also extending the study of consumer information systems and knowledge-sharing activities to the hotel and tourism sectors.

Professor Jin-Woo Bae was selected in the Cross-Field category. He drew significant academic attention for discovering gut microbes capable of improving obesity and diabetes. Professor Bae has since broadened his work to include viral ecology, expanding the frontier of microbiome research.

Professor Choong Seon Hong was selected in the Computer Science category in recognition of his research on resource management and machine learning for wireless networks. He has published more than 300 articles in leading international journals. In 2024, he was named a Fellow of the IEEE, the world's most prestigious electrical, electronic, computer, and communications scholarship, and received the Grand Prize of the Undang Academic Award, the highest academic honor in Korea’s ICT field.

Sustained outcome of long-term research-support policy

In another international benchmark of research excellence, Stanford University and Elsevier, a global academic information analysis company, annually announce the Top 2% of Researchers in the World, based on lifetime citation impact and the impact of the most recent year. Kyung Hee currently has 62 researchers listed for lifetime impact and 120 for the past year, marking the University’s highest representation to date.

In 2025, Kyung Hee set new institutional records by producing its highest number of both HCRs and Top 2% researchers, further demonstrating world-class research capability. This achievement carries particular significance, as all selected faculty members have grown into distinguished scholars under the University’s sustained emphasis on research support, which has resulted in strengthening the capabilities of its members and fostering a stable research ecosystem across all stages of academic life, from new appointments to retirement.

"We will strive to create world-class research excellence."

Kyung Hee's research-support policies for research and innovations have translated into strong international standing. In the 2025 THE World University Rankings, the University ranked 252nd globally and 5th among comprehensive universities in Korea, earning high marks particularly for research quality. In the 2025 QS Asia University Rankings, Kyung Hee ranked 39th in Asia, with consistently strong scores across all categories, including research output and quantitative data.

The University will continue enhancing its research-support infrastructure to drive the multifaceted growth of faculty members into leading scholars and to advance international collaborative research with eminent academics. We will actively promote global joint research efforts both on and off campus, and reinforce support for researchers who demonstrate exceptional academic quality. We will also continue to recruit faculty with world-class capabilities and ensure the sustained cultivation of the next generation of scholars so that research excellence becomes a defining and enduring hallmark of Kyung Hee.

President Jinsang Kim stated, "Kyung Hee is walking the path of Academe and Peace as a true university of future, a leader in this era of civilizational transition. These results show that our rising academic stature is now being recognized internationally. We are committed to continuously recruiting outstanding researchers and fully supporting both established and emerging scholars across our community in interdisciplinary collaboration to generate world-class research excellence."