The chemical industry is an infrastructure industry for our country, and in terms of industrial products, it has changed from a heavy chemical industry such as petro-chemistry and fertilizer in the 70s to technology-intensive and small quantity batch production in the 90s. Because it changed to a fine chemistry industry such with low-pollution and high added value functional chemical products, there is a greater need for a high-quality professional workforce in related areas.
In the fine chemistry area, there are around 500 different fine chemistry industries such as medicine, agricultural pesticides, cosmetics, dye pigments, paints, surfactants, adhesives, food additives, and various new materials. Although the fine chemistry area has been around for a long time in related research institutes, there is no graduate school for fine chemistry in the country, so there is insufficient infrastructure for supporting technology development and policy making.
Therefore, we aim to cultivate a capable new professional workforce equipped with theory and practice for establishing infrastructure to support the expanded distribution of high level technology and policy decisions, by establishing an organic cooperation system between related industries, education centers, and government agencies.

Advanced multinational companies continually create high added value by developing bioactive substances, new/special functional substances, new materials, and environmentally friendly products to maintain a monopolistic status in the future through current technological superiority in the fine chemistry area. On the other hand, it is expected that they will invest more in research to create new materials in the fine chemistry area, to dominate the global market in advance.
The domestic fine chemistry industry consists of a production structure focusing on finished goods, so it is still maintaining a low added value production structure which imports and uses key materials such as raw and intermediate goods of high added value from the USA, Europe, and Japan.
Some general products and original production technology have reached the level of advanced countries, but the capacity needed for new product development such as most key technologies for creating new materials and high quality formulation technology are still very weak and only at 60% of advanced countries. Hence, it is necessary to develop technology for intermediate and raw products which has a great technical ripple effect, to enable early localization and an import-substitution effect.
The Department of Fine Chemistry has the goal to contribute to national industry development by accurately comprehending the present situation in the fine chemistry industry in our country, and producing graduates equipped with international competitiveness through internally stable education and future oriented research.

The fine chemistry industry is a very important industry as an area to lead national industry development through international competition. Therefore, concentrated investment is expected to cultivate a workforce for the fine chemistry industry, and our department is a very competitive department to produce excellent graduates in this area.