Busan, Korea — September 24, 2025
Embracing the morning sun and vibrant coastal energy of Busan, South Korea, the WURI Global Conference 2025 (WGC 2025) convened as the vanguard of global higher education reform. Hosted by Tongmyong University, this landmark gathering brought together institutional leaders, cutting-edge researchers, and policy-makers from 20 countries representing 131 universities—375 participants in total—to engage in 43 presentation sessions facilitated by 280 distinguished presenters. United not by competition, but by a shared transformative purpose, the WGC 2025 stood as a definitive declaration that innovation is now a collective, borderless commitment—a global movement catalyzing the reimagination of the academic paradigm to meet the pressing challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.
A Convergence of Vision and Action
President Sang-chun Lee of Tongmyong University delivered welcome remarks that set the tone for the conference. His words articulated a profound truth resonating throughout the gathering: universities are no longer isolated institutions competing for prestige. Instead, they have become interconnected nodes in a dynamic global network of purpose-driven innovation. This reimagined role reflects a fundamental shift in institutional identity—from autonomous competitors to collaborative agents dedicated to a shared imperative: advancing innovation in higher education as a catalyst for meaningful stakeholder engagement and transformative societal impact.
Dr. Dong-sung Cho, Chair of the WURI Foundation, delivered an opening address that positioned this conference at a crucial inflection point in higher education history. As artificial intelligence reshapes learning, as sustainability becomes non-negotiable, and as social justice movements demand accountability from institutions, the question facing universities worldwide is no longer “How do we preserve what we have?” but rather “How do we reimagine what education can become?”
Busan City’s Embrace
Busan Mayor Heong-joon Park’s congratulatory remarks carried special significance. By welcoming this global gathering to Korea’s second-largest metropolitan area, the city signaled that innovation in higher education is not a Western phenomenon or a privilege of elite institutions. It is a worldwide imperative, and it belongs everywhere. The strategic location—a port city that has itself undergone remarkable transformation—provided a fitting backdrop for conversations about institutional metamorphosis.
WURI’s Revolutionary Approach to Institutional Excellence
Vice Chair Jung-wan Cho offered an articulation on what WURI’s global presence actually represents—and how it fundamentally differs from conventional ranking paradigms. Representatives from institutions across continents filled the hall. Yet the true significance lay in what their presence symbolized: a radical reimagining of how global higher education excellence is measured and celebrated.
WURI disrupts this traditional ranking paradigm. Each delegation in the hall represented not merely a university seeking ranking position, but an institution embracing a commitment to measurable excellence and transparent accountability. This distinction is revolutionary. WURI has constructed a collaborative ecosystem where transparency becomes a competitive advantage rather than a vulnerability. Universities no longer hoard their data or hide their methodologies. Instead, they participate in a collective commitment to evidence-based excellence, learning from one another’s innovations rather than merely outpacing each other in hierarchies.
This represents a seismic shift in institutional culture. Where traditional metrics reward institutional isolation, WURI rewards institutional openness. Where conventional rankings pit universities against each other, WURI invites them into genuine dialogue about what excellence means, how it should be measured, and how institutions can collectively advance the quality of global higher education. The participating community gathered in Busan was a declaration that a new model of institutional accountability has emerged—one built on collaboration, transparency, and shared commitment to meaningful educational transformation.
The Metrics Behind the Movement
Kyung-Sung Kim, PhD, Chair of the WURI Ranking and President of iSTAT, presented the WURI Ranking 2025 overview with attention to how institutional innovation is now being measured globally. The metrics reflect a fundamental shift in what “excellence” means in contemporary higher education: 1) Research impact and relevance — not merely publication volume; 2) Internationalization and collaboration — not isolation
Sustainability integration — not extraction; 3) Social responsibility — not indifference to community, and 4)
Learning innovation — not pedagogical stagnation.
These metrics tell a story: the world’s leading universities are no longer defined by tradition alone, but by their capacity to evolve, to serve, and to innovate in response to humanity’s most pressing challenges.
Innovation Takes Center Stage
The presentation of awards to the most innovative universities and projects became the conference’s highlight during the Opening Ceremonies on Day 1. Dr. Michael Magee, President of Minerva University, represented institutions that have dared to fundamentally reimagine the university experience itself—moving beyond traditional lecture halls to project-based, globally distributed learning communities.
Yet the real power lay not in the awards themselves, but in what they symbolized: a global community that celebrates institutional courage. When a university receives recognition for innovation, it sends a message to thousands of other institutions: “Your bold experiments matter. Your willingness to take risks matters. Your commitment to doing education differently matters.”
The Deeper Story
Behind the polished presentations and formal remarks lay stories that deserve telling. These are the narratives that will echo far beyond Busan: 1) Stories of transformation. Universities that pivoted during crisis, that reimagined their missions, that discovered new forms of excellence in unexpected places. 2) Stories of collaboration. Institutions that realized their greatest achievements came not from individual brilliance, but from global partnerships and shared learning. 3) Stories of purpose: Universities that chose to measure success not merely by rankings, but by the tangible impact on communities, on students, on the world’s capacity to address injustice, inequality, and environmental challenges.
In the breakout sessions, in the conversations over coffee, in the connections forged between leaders and educators from different continents who discover they share not just professional interests, but a common vision for transformed higher education. The innovation being celebrated at this conference is not confined to cutting-edge research labs or prestigious institutions. It lives in classrooms where teachers are experimenting with new pedagogies. It breathes in community centers where universities are serving as anchors for social change. It pulses through online networks where students across borders are collaborating on solutions to global challenges.
Conference delegates were asking such as: How do we prepare students not for a world that exists, but for worlds they will create? How do we ensure that innovation serves not the privileged few, but for humanity? How do we measure excellence in ways that honor both rigor and relevance?
Busan, a city that embodies transformation and resilience, became the stage for a simple but revolutionary message: The future of higher education belongs to institutions brave enough to reimagine themselves.
And that future is being written right now, by educators and leaders gathered in this WURI conference session halls and across the world, committed to making universities agents of meaningful, measured, and sustainable innovation.
For centuries, universities were established as institutions of collective wisdom—places where knowledge serves the common good, where inquiry advances human flourishing, where scholars commit themselves to purposes beyond institutional walls. WGC 2025 represents a global recommitment to reclaiming that founding vision.
The real work happens wherever leaders prioritize true service, collaboration, and impact. It happens wherever institutions remember why they were created: to serve the world, not merely themselves. This is WURI’s promise. This is the movement Busan witnessed take shape—a return recommitment to purpose, a declaration that universities matter because they serve humanity’s greatest needs.
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About the Author:
Genevieve B. Kupang is the Dean of the Graduate School and the International Relations Officer of Baguio Central University. She serves as the WURI Historian and WUNI-L Secretary.