UNIVERSITY OF SEOUL

-  32.5 billion won in government support, 5-year program through 2028

- Aims to foster "professionals who can contribute to the achievement of the 2050 National NetZero and the 17 UN SDGs to build a resource-circulating economy and carbon-neutral urban environment" through multidisciplinary convergence education

University of Seoul (President Won Yong-gul) has been selected for the 'Green Convergence Technology Carbon Neutral Specialization Graduate School' supported by the Ministry of Environment and the Korea Institute of Environment and Industrial Technology.

The project aims to foster experts who can quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of absorption, storage, reduction, and capture technologies and policies for carbon neutrality in the field, including industry and local governments.

The Graduate School of Carbon Neutrality Specialization University of Seoul (headed by Professor Lee Seung-il of the Department of Urban Engineering) will comprise seven departments (Department of Urban Engineering, Department of Environmental Engineering, Department of Spatial Information Engineering, School of Business Administration, School of Economics, Department of Landscape Architecture, and Graduate School of International Urban Science) to provide multidisciplinary education based on quantitative evaluation for the field application of technologies and policies in the field of carbon reduction, such as ▲ energy efficiency technology, ▲ process improvement and emission calculation research, and ▲ energy conversion to respond to carbon neutrality regulations. In addition, it will foster specialized manpower for carbon-neutral urban environments through convergent education and research covering urban, environmental, spatial information, economics, management, and policy fields.

In addition, the Graduate School of Carbon Neutrality Specialization will develop into Korea's first convergence graduate school for sustainable development sciences in conjunction with the Graduate School of De-plasticization and the Graduate School of Climate Change Specialization, led by Professor Kim Hyun-wook of the Department of Environmental Engineering at University of Seoul

"It is urgent to expand human resources to contribute to achieving the internationally agreed '2050 carbon neutrality' goal. According to UNEP, the amount of CO2 emitted by cities around the world accounts for 75% of the total global emissions." "It is difficult to achieve global carbon neutrality unless a plan to achieve carbon neutrality in all components of the city is established and implemented (see figure) and the so-called NetZero is achieved. Therefore, this specialized graduate school aims to build a carbon-neutral urban environment based on the resource circulation economy to achieve '2050 carbon neutrality' and plans to train specialized personnel in related fields." He explained the significance of the establishment of the Graduate School of Carbon Neutrality at University of Seoul

Meanwhile, Lee has been actively conducting education and research related to low-carbon, green growth and carbon-reducing cities, including serving as the head of the BK21 project to train sustainable urban experts supported by the Ministry of Education since 2020.