Case study: Korea University (KU)

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collaboration and recognitionwith Pure

Research Intelligence

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The challenge
When Prof. Lee took on his role as Executive Vice President for
Research in 2017, Korea University (KU) was already considereda high-performing university, with a strong reputation forresearch. However, the Research Office saw the opportunity tobuild on that reputation. According to Prof. Lee: “We realizedthat KU had the potential to become a globally-outstandinguniversity.”Prof. Kwan-Young Lee
Executive Vice President for Research atKorea University, Korea“Pure was a natural choice – itis a solution that helps thecuration, analysis and publicityof researchers’ achievements. In
addition, it manages research
networks in an integrated way.”
Professor Kwan-Young Lee explains how his institution
leverages Elsevier’s solution to position KU as a worldclass research university
Prof. Kwan-Young Lee holds several senior roles at Korea
University, including Executive Vice President for Research,Dean of the Graduate School, and Director of the Institute ofConvergence Science. One thing all these various positions share
is a drive to enhance the university’s research capability. As Prof.
Lee explains: “Our goal is to make Korea University a worldclass research-focused university.” Early on, Prof. Lee realizedthat having the right digital solutions in place was going to be a
crucial step towards achieving that ambition. In this case study,
he explains why KU selected Elsevier’s Pure and the benefits they
have since reaped.

However, if KU was going to be recognized for its researchexcellence worldwide, the team knew that showcasing theaccomplishments of researchers would be key. And that meantfinding a way to promote their outcomes and activities at both alocal and an international level.
Prof. Lee was also keen to find a way to support collaboration
at the university, as he believes group research creates its own“virtuous cycle”. He explains: “In my experience, it results inhigh-quality papers, which lead to the generation of novel
research subjects, as well as opportunities to secure researchfunding and new partnerships. So, one of our goals was tofurther encourage professors to collaborate with internal andexternal researchers.”
Another key focus was to introduce more innovation at KU, notonly in terms of research, but in education and administration.
Korea University already had a home-grown solution for
managing research – KURMS (Korea University Research
Management System) – but what Prof. Lee and his teammissed was a solution to help them disseminate their researchachievements, increase the visibility of researchers, and growtheir international networks, while improving KU’s global
research reputation.

The solution
One of Prof. Lee’s first initiatives was to set up a ResearchInformation Analysis Center at KU. Working in collaboration
with the Research Office, they soon identified Pure as the bestsolution for their needs. Prof. Lee explains: “Pure was a naturalchoice – it is a solution that helps the curation, analysis andpublicity of researchers’ achievements. In addition, it manages“In my opinion, using both SciVal and Pureconcurrently has helped us a lot at KU,
and has created a kind of synergy effect.”“Pure has improved the visibility andresearch reputation of Korea University
globally by promoting our excellent
researchers and their researchachievements. Ultimately, I believethat this improves our overall researchcapability and international recognition.”– Prof. Kwan-Young Lee– Prof. Kwan-Young Lee

PureYour brilliance, organized for action2research networks in an integrated way.”
They also selected Elsevier’s SciVal, a web-based researchanalytics solution with access to the research performanceof over 20,000 research institutions and their associatedresearchers worldwide. Together, the two teams then drew up anaction plan for the roll out of the solutions, building consensus
across campus through a process of information sharing. Prof.
Lee says: “This helped us gain the support of departments suchas Academic Affairs, the Research Planning Division, the Officeof Planning and Budget, and the Industry-Academic CorporationFoundation.”
To help them prioritize faculties for the population of Pureprofiles, Prof. Lee and his team drew on SciVal’s analysis tools
to understand quantitative and qualitative research achievement
and international collaboration.
Today, more than 550 researchers at Korea University haveprofiles on Pure, many of them from the fields of Science,
Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine. Prof.
Lee says: “We found that these are the groups that benefit
most from international collaboration. For the same reason,
we have also profiled Economics researchers In the Arts andHumanities.”
He adds: “We have also found that investing time to advertise,encourage, monitor and manage our university’s Pure profiles
maximizes their effectiveness.”

The results
Since the launch of Pure, the Research Office has seen
improvements across the board, from greater discoverabilityof their researchers to improved performance in the various
university rankings.
For example, Pure’s search engine optimization (SEO) has seen
Korea University move to a higher spot in Google’s search
results, bringing in a raft of new and international visitors.
Another benefit for Prof. Lee and his team is that the researchachievements of KU’s faculty are now profiled in way thatthey can measure. He says: “We’ve also found that Pure not
only helps to showcase KU’s group research; for example, via
regular updates of researchers’ collaboration networks, it also
boosts international collaboration by enabling individual faculty
members to discover researchers in the same field globally.”
Prof. Lee adds: “With Pure, we’ve also seen international accessto our research grow from 66% to 80%. When we look at thedata by country, we can see that those who actively collaborate
with us, such as the US, India, Japan and China, now have steadyaccess to our research information.”
Importantly, Prof. Lee also believes that Pure has impacted
KU’s recognition globally. He explains: “Greater exposure ofour research has contributed to an increase in our university’s
academic reputation and international collaboration indicators,
resulting in KU rising from 86th to 74th place in the QS WorldUniversity Rankings in recent years. We were also recognized
as the top university in Korea in the 2021 and 2022 QS Asia
University Rankings.”

About Professor Kwan-Young LeeProf. Lee was trained in Chemical Engineering at Seoul
National University (Bd.S. and M.S), Korea. He wasawarded his PhD in Synthetic Chemistry at The Universityof Tokyo, Japan, before taking on a professorship atKorea University in 1994. Prof. Lee was the presidentof the Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers in 2020.
He is a member of NAEK (the National Academy ofEngineering of Korea) and KAST (the Korean Academyof Science and Technology). He was awarded the Doyak
Medal of Order of Science and Technological Merit by theKorean Government and is a Korean Delegate for IACS(The International Association of Catalysis Societies) andAPACS (Asia-Pacific Association of Catalysis Societies). He
has published more than 300 major journal papers andregistered 100 patents.

Interested in finding out how Pure helps researchers raise their profileand build new connections globally? In our case study, “Why Pure
has become the go-to solution for one of Korea’s most influentialresearchers”, Korea University’s Professor Yong Sik Ok explains
how he has used Pure to build an international network that now
spans almost 50 countries and nearly 400 universities, institutes andindustries.

PureYour brilliance, organized for action
3PureThe world’s leading research information management system that enables
evidence-based decisions, simplifies research administration and optimizes
impact, reporting, and compliance.

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February 2022