October 10 to 11 saw KAIST hosting the annual International Presidential Forum at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul, Korea. The Forum is a brainchild of KAIST President Nam Pyo Suh, who began this tradition with a view to encourage cooperation between numerous research-oriented universities from around the world.

After spending the first of two days touring Seoul, the delegates present at this year’s forum spent most of the second day in the hotel’s conference room presenting their ideas and following up with discussions. This year’s participants included presidents and professors of a diverse range of universities, including the University of Queensland, Georgia Institute of Technology and Kumamoto University.

The agenda of IPF 2010 was “The Role of the Research University in an S&T Dominated Era: Expectation vs. Delivery.” During Monday’s conference, which was divided into two sessions, many of the forum’s presenters chose to discuss one of several prevalent topics at the conference. The majority of speakers used the opportunity to broach the subject of cooperation and partnership between research universities. Lars Pallesen of the Technical University of Denmark emphasized that being the national best is meaningless on the world stage and advocated student exchange as a means of inter-university cooperation. Such sentiments were echoed in the presentations of other speakers, such as that of Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Executive Vice-President Ichiro Okura who put forth the concept of the ASPIRE league, a union of the best East Asian technological universities such as KAIST and HKUST to create satellite labs that will coordinate research activities. Some speakers examined the theoretical aspects of research cooperation, offering ideas and strategies for successful international cooperation, the focus of Kishore Ramachandran’s speech, and efficient university structuring, as delineated by HKUST’s Acting Vice-President Matthew Yuen.

A number of speakers used their presentation opportunity differently, presenting their universities’ projects and goals in relation to their country and society. Vice Chancellor Zaini Ujang informed the audience of the Malaysian government’s plans on the growth of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia in accordance to the country’s needs, while Dianguo Xu of Harbin University described the impact his university’s projects have had on the local community. The few non-university affiliated speakers, such as NASA Lunar Science Director Yvonne Pendleton, used the forum as an opportunity to examine the universities’ stances while promoting their own projects; Pendleton presented a strong case for universities to consider applying their own faculty to work with NASA.

This year’s IPF was wrapped up with a lavish dinner event that included a speech by the Minister of Education, Science and Technology Ju-Ho Lee and a performance by the KAIST’s vocal group CHORUS.