On April 5, the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation announced the results of the 2011 Global Ph.D. Fellowship selection. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) has selected 287 students to receive full scholarships for their doctoral studies for the purpose of nurturing world-class academics and researchers in Korea with the capability to compete at the highest level. The 287 students will receive 2.5 million KRW a month for a period of two years, amounting to a total of 60 million KRW. Moreover, the ministry will request that the universities at which they attend waive the tuition fees of the selected students.

SNU students were greatest in number among those selected, with 67 students (22.3%), while students of KAIST and POSTECH followed, with 56 and 30 respectively. The results showed that 80.5% of the selected students are under the age of 30, 60% were male, and 62% of them were from universities in or around the nation’s capital.

Purpose of the Program

The ministry’s main aim is to construct a foundation for world-class graduate schools by departing from the previous trend of concentrating only on academic or research track records and selecting and intensively nurturing students with a high potential for development. The ministry plans to adopt a ‘select and concentrate’ approach to establish a foundation to nurture globally competitive professionals with further education. The chief objective of the program is to permit students in doctoral programs within Korea to give their undivided attention to their studies without having to worry about tuition fees or living expenses. The block funding fellowship will create a much needed favorable domestic academic environment for graduate schools as more students yearn to study at the most prestigious universities worldwide. The program, it is hoped, might eventually disrupt the worrisome flow of the country’s most promising students leaving Korea to study at universities abroad. The fellowship sweetens the deal by not adding any burdensome conditions, such as participating in studies or submitting research results, encouraging those selected to fully concentrate on their studies. They are required merely to be enrolled as full-time students, and they are prohibited from getting jobs after they have been selected and throughout the duration of their studies. 

Selection Process

The Ministry of Education initially planned to choose 300 candidates. They only selected 287 this time, however, as the program was forced to pick fewer than expected due to a shortage of viable candidates in the fields of literature and electronic information. Candidates were required to have a GPA higher than 3.2 out of 4.2 (or 3.45 out of 4.5) and a TEPS score of more than 650 (or over 80 on the IBT TOEFL).

In mid-January of this year, the Ministry of Education sent official notices to all universities, requesting that they recommend distinguished students for the ‘Global Ph.D. Fellowship’ and applications for the program were accepted from January 18 until February 17. There were a total of 1271 applicants, making the average competition rate 4.2 to 1. Most candidates had a month to prepare their papers for the preliminary document evaluation. Panels were formed for each field to narrow down the number of candidates based on criteria including grades, research achievements, understanding and aptitude for the field and outlines and plans for their future studies. Only 601 candidates made it through the primary screening process and were then allowed an interview. In the final interviews, which were conducted in English, the applicants had to make presentations in English in front of a panel composed of foreign scholars. To ensure fairness, the applicants were judged only on their individual merits as interviewers were unaware of their names and universities. This enabled the successful implementation of an assessment method that emphasizes talent, escaping the archaic subjective practice of funding students who concentrated more on flattering their professors than on their studies. They were meticulously judged on a wide range of criteria such as creativity, problem solving capabilities, potential for growth, international communication skills, research ethics and leadership aptitude.

Specifics and Future Plans

The ministry designated 34.8% of the science and technology field scholarships for combined master’s and doctoral programs. This was because over 30% of the scholarships were allocated for combined programs in the natural sciences and engineering field in an effort to convince postgraduate students to study at Korean universities. Moreover, in order to promote foundation studies, the scholarships provided one foundation course for every applied course. The education ministry was pleased to be able to integrate the previously separate talent nurturing systems for the natural sciences and engineering field into a single GPS (Global Ph.D. Scholarship) System. The GPS System is a program that manages and supports students from the undergraduate stage through till their postdoc years. The ministry also plans to support the students’ research and studies by establishing a consulting team comprised of the best scholars in each field. Mailing systems will be set up to provide systematic guidance from the renowned scholars. The exchange of academic data, recent research trends and information on major academic conventions will be promoted.

The funding began as of March 1, and there are secondary plans scheduled to expand the range and volume of funding when the two-year period is over in February 2013. Students who are in a combined master’s and doctoral program will have a chance to extend the support by 2 years, based on another comprehensive evaluation of achievements and published papers. Doctoral students will likely have the opportunity to extend their funding for an additional 3 years. More detailed funding arrangements are due to be released between late April and early May.

Cho Jae Ik, deputy director for the university support department in the Ministry of Education, stated that “A lot of the students who were selected have a high probability of becoming a globally leading scholar in the future, and we even expect a Nobel Prize winner to emerge from the 287 that were selected.” Although the program will not act as the silver bullet for all the problems concerning domestic graduate schools, it is certainly a step in the right direction.

April 29, 2011
Written by YU Minseok, SNU English Editor, brits@snu.ac.kr
Reviewed by Professor Eli Park Sorensen, College of Liberal Studies
Proofread by Brett Johnson, SNU English Editor