Khon Kaen University

Khon Kaen University is regarded as the one of Thailand’s top research universities. Founded in 1964 near the city of Khon Kaen, it was initially set up as an institute of technology  to further the study of engineering and agriculture and was later named the University of North East Thailand. It renamed Khon Kaen University – known as KKU – and was appointed one of Thailand’s nine national research universities in 2010, in addition to its work as a major educational centre in the Mekong region. With more than 40,000 students, including 10,000 postgraduates and 500 overseas students, across around 350 study programmes on its main campus, KKU also has around 2,200 academic staff and 8,500 support staff. One of KKU’s main strategic goals is to be recognized both internationally and regionally as a leading university in research. Among the areas in which outstanding research takes place at KKU is in medicine, public Health and tropical medicine, with its Tropical Disease Research Laboratory gaining widespread acclaim. It also excels in its historic research strength of agriculture, with studies focusing on tropical farming systems in both animal and plant science. Work on the bio-diversity in the Mekong River basin, as well as business and tourism in this area, has also been recognised. In line with the goal to develop the university’s research, it has now has a total of 25 research centres of excellence and research specialist groups, based around six research themes: health problems, food products and food for health, water management, improving literacy and numeracy, biofuels and advanced materials. In addition, the university has partnerships with more than 160 national and international research organizations from 25 countries. There are also exchange programs for KKU students, personnel, provided with full equipment, knowledge, labs and other kinds of bodies of knowledge.