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This article delves into the establishment of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), often referred to as the “Korean Caltech,” with a focus on theoretical physicist and educator Hogil Kim (1933-1994). During the 1980s, a period marked by a growing societal demand for universities to actively engage in scientific and technological research and development, Kim initiated the creation of the Yeonam Institute of Technology and later, POSTECH. These endeavors were sponsored by present-day LG and POSCO respectively. However, the realization of Kim’s vision for a Korean Caltech faced numerous challenges. Conflicts emerged with POSCO and its research unit, RIST, regarding the university’s research autonomy. In terms of what makes a university “world-class,” Kim’s vision lacked clarity beyond the pursuit of Nobel Prize recognition. Additionally, a nationalist perspective often eclipsed the international outlook. Nonetheless, the establishment of POSTECH represented a significant milestone, embodying a distinctive effort driven by scientists for scientists in the history of science and technology in modern Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Maoist China's project of the "Integration of Chinese and Western Veterinary Medicines," focusing on how folk veterinary knowledge and practices were "scientized" and transformed into a new hybrid science called "Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine" in 1956-1963. Engaging with the literature on socialist science and the PRC history, it shows that a group of Western-trained veterinary scientists, veterinary cadres, and folk veterinary masters, or "TCVM pioneers," rather than the CCP itself, took a proactive role in this project. I also examine similarities and differences between the construction of TCM and that of TCVM, arguing that the demand that TCVM as an empirical, applied science must serve the socialist collective agriculture shaped the latter in a distinctive way. This article emphasizes that TCVM's therapeutic efficacy was "scientifically" verified through a particular experimental design that embraced both "Chinese" and "Western" elements. These findings urge us to see the history of science in socialist China without normalizing the Eurocentric and "diffusionist" narrative nor propagating the Sinocentric and Han nationalistic counternarrative. In this vein, this case study provides a way of understanding the "scientific," "Chinese," "modern," and "traditional" in the framework of global history of science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]