Background and Foundation Process

We have decided to found the Academy of Kim Dae-jung Studies for two important reasons.

First, January 6, 2024 marks the centennial anniversary of President Kim Dae-jung’s birth. With that important milestone around the corner, the Kim Dae-Jung Foundation formed consensus on the need to do a systematic research and education on Kim Dae-jung’s philosophies, thoughts, politics, policies, and leadership. Those ideas were boiled down to the establishment of a research institute and an education institute.

Second, we saw the beginning of a just and rightful evaluation of President Kim Dae-jung in our society. Gallup Korea conducted a survey on "Merits and Demerits of Korean Presidents" from October 26 to 28, 2021 and found that Kim Dae-jung was named as the state leader with the most merits and the least demerits. As is known, President Kim Dae-jung has been highly respected overseas, but less in Korea. This undue situation nears the end. That is, the Korean citizens have come to realize that they should bring hope to the country, the nation, and the humanity by learning Kim Dae-Jung's ideas, politics and policies, who argued and practiced: "The domestic politics should go for integration, not fragmentation, and the external politics, for peace, not war.“

We responded to the current needs and developed the idea and the plan for founding the Academy.

In June 2021, Kwon Noh-Gap, Chairman of the Kim Dae-Jung Foundation, Kim Hong-Up, Chairman of Kim Dae-Jung Peace Center, and Paik Haksoon, former president of the Sejong Institute, discussed the need to establish an academy to educate political and civil leaders as well as the general public about Kim Dae-jung’s philosophies, thoughts, achievements, and legacy. They thought they could benefit from others’ experiences, the German experience of civil and political education, in particular, as a reference. At the invitation of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) prepared by Mr. Henning Effner, head of the FES Seoul Office, Paik visited the FES offices in Berlin and Bonn. He was briefed about the FES education experiences by those in charge of civil and political education in the foundation.

In January 2022, Former Speaker of the South Korean National Assembly Moon Hee-Sang and former lawmaker Bae Ki-Seon founded the "Indongcho Peace Forum," planning to establish the "Kim Dae-jung College of Politics." In April 2022, the two parallel efforts for the establishment of the Academy were combined to streamline the process and avoid duplication. The Kim Dae-Jung Foundation decided to establish both research and education institutions, that is, the Academy of the Kim Dae-jung Studies and the Kim Dae-jung School of Politics. And former president of Sejong Institute Paik Haksoon and Former Speaker of South Korean National Assembly Moon Hee-Sang were appointed to head the Academy of the Kim Dae-jung Studies and the Kim Dae-jung School of Politics, respectively.

The Kim Dae-jung School of Politics began running the education course on June 17 after opening the School on June 15, 2022 in commemoration of the June 15 North-South Joint Declaration of 2000. Three months later on September 17, 2022, the foundation meeting for the Academy of Kim Dae-jung Studies was held in the Kim Dae-Jung Library and Museum. And on October 1, the Academy was officially opened with 70 great minds in total -- 10 advisors and 30 research members from Korea and 13 advisors and 17 research members from overseas.