The Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) is a research-oriented national university focused on applied science and technology located in Gwangju, the city which gave birth to the modern Korean democratic movement. It was founded by the Korean government in 1993 as a research-oriented institute to train highly skilled scientists and researchers and opened its undergraduate program in 2010. It is the first university in Korea to adopt an innovative liberal arts-based collegiate science curriculum and has extensive educational exchange programs with universities around the globe to enable research into a wide variety of science and engineering fields. Classes are taught in English and master’s and doctoral theses written in English. The university has the highest technical fee and technology transfer performance in Korea. It ranked fourth in the QS World University Rankings for citations per faculty in the world 2022. It has maintained the top spot for citations per faculty in Korea for the past 14 years. Of the nearly 2,400 student,10 percent are international students. The university aims to promote balanced regional development in the heart of the historic Honam region and promote collaboration between the Korean and international industrial sectors.