10 days ago
The First Co-Researchers' Workshop for the First Year of Phase 2
On Wednesday, September 23, 2026, the K-Academic Diffusion Research Center of the Inha Center for International Studies hosted its first co-researcher workshop of the year online. The Center’s work is funded through the Academy of Korean Studies’ K-Academic Diffusion Research Center Program, administered by the Korean Studies Promotion Service. The workshop focused on the direction of the Center's second-phase project, “Korean Studies of Identity Politics and Public Diplomacy,” which launched in July 2026, and on the roles co-researchers will play in it.
The session opened with a look back at what the Center accomplished during Phase 1 (2021–2026). Over those five years, the Center produced and distributed 50 online courses in social science-based Korean Studies, with a particular focus on political science and international relations. It also published 30 journal articles, hosted 31 academic events (25 of them international conferences), signed MOUs with 16 institutions in Korea and abroad, and ran three cohorts of K-Connectors, its student public diplomacy corps, which brought together 86 undergraduate and graduate students. One highlight was the adoption of the Center's courses into regular curricula at the National University of Mongolia, Chinese Culture University in Taiwan, and Kyushu University in Japan, where they have served as pre-class readings, discussion materials, and replacement lecture videos.
The workshop then turned to the goals of Phase 2. Participants agreed that while Phase 1 had succeeded in building a large body of social science-based Korean Studies content, several challenges remained: keeping content up to date, tailoring it to different regions and audiences, restructuring it for remote learning, and making it more accessible in multiple languages. Phase 2 is designed to address these gaps by reworking the existing 50 courses to meet global demand and, in doing so, to complete and expand a global Korean Studies platform rooted in political science and international relations.
Several concrete strategies were outlined. These include curating content separately for overseas Koreans and international learners, breaking long lectures down into concept-focused micro-learning modules, and upgrading the platform through richer metadata and better multilingual subtitles. The Center also presented a four-step dissemination roadmap, which moves from introductory briefings for partner institutions to MOUs, pilot programs, and ultimately formal course recognition at overseas universities, along with a year-by-year plan for the next five years.
The final part of the workshop addressed the roles of co-researchers in Phase 2. All co-researchers will identify potential partner institutions in their assigned regions, assess local needs, and help share research findings through the Center's academic events and periodicals. Individual responsibilities were then divided by region and field: Taiwan and northern Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East, China and the wider Chinese-speaking world, and international political economy. The key milestones for the first year were also shared.
The workshop gave co-researchers a shared understanding of how Phase 2 will turn the course materials built up in Phase 1 into content shaped around learners' needs, and it marked an important step toward building out the Center's regional dissemination network.
PresenterK-ACADEMIC DIFFUSION RESEARCH CENTER
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