On Friday May 15, 2009, Osaka University welcomed Professor Yong Ho Park, Pusan National University, Korea to the signing ceremony of the agreement for cooperation between the Global COE Program and the Brain Korea 21 (BK21) Program, Pusan National University.

Pusan National University (PNU), which was founded in 1946 at Busan, enjoys the reputation of being one of the top universities in Korea. Today, many graduates of PNU are playing pivotal roles as community, national, and world leaders. BK21 is a human resource development program initiated by the Korean government; this program seeks to make Korean research universities globally competitive and aims to produce more high-quality researchers in Korea. After the successful completion of the first phase of BK21, the second phase was launched in 2006.

Our Global COE Program and the BK21 program have the common objective of fostering excellent researchers. We believe that this agreement will further expand and strengthen our relationship with PNU.