South Korea: University opens third foreign representation

Göttingen office in Seoul has commenced work – workshops and cooperation talks

The third foreign representation of the Georg-August-University has officially commenced its activities:The office in Seoul was opened with a ceremony on the 29th of November 2008.For this purpose 14 Göttingen delegates under the leadership of University President Prof.Dr. Kurt von Figura travelled to South Korea for several days.The opening ceremony was attended by the Minister for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony Lutz Stratmann and the presidents of the four Korean partner universities, as well as numerous guests.



With the opening of an office in Seoul based at the Kim Hee-Kyung Scholarship-Foundation for European Humanities, the University of Göttingen follows a tradition of exchanges and contacts with universities in Korea.“We are proud of the large number of students and academics who have come to Göttingen to study and research over the past decades” Prof. von Figura tells the around 150 guests present at the opening event, including numerous alumni.The Alumni Society Göttingen in Korea has become a reliable pillar in German-Korean university relations.”
The director of the Kim Hee-Kyung-Scholarship Foundation, Prof. Dr. Chung-Ok Kim, is also an alumna of the Georgia Augusta.The German philology scholar has maintained close contacts with the University of Göttingen for many years.“We are honoured and very grateful that we were able to establish our office at the premises of the Foundation so that we can extend our collaboration with the Korean universities from here” emphasises the President of the University of Göttingen.The opening event was also attended by the German ambassador, the vice minister of science of South Korea and the president of the country’s constitutional court.

As well as the opening of the foreign representation, the programme of the delegation from Göttingen included 15 workshops at four partner universities as well as cooperative talks with representatives of the universities:an exchange about research areas in medicine, biology and chemistry, literary sciences as well as in forestry, economics and law took place on the 1st and 2nd of December.Here Göttingen’s academics and colleagues of the Seoul National University, the Korea University, the Ewha University and the Incheon University discussed the opportunities and potentials offered by the cooperation.At the same time the University Vice President Prof. Dr. Doris Lemmermöhle, the head of the department Göttingen International Dr. Uwe Muuß and the head of the foreign representation Roswitha Brinkmann conducted talks with representatives of the partner universities responsible for international relations.

As well as in South Korea the University of Göttingen maintains foreign representations in India and China, which were opened in October of this year.Roswitha Brinkmann from the department Göttingen International heads the foreign representations in Seoul and in Nanjing, China.Dr. Ramesh Ahuja heads the office in Pune.