The Institute of Gerontology established in 1985 was the first university affiliated institute in Korea to purport advanced gerontological studies on the problems of aging and elderly people, and to prepare political measures for enhancing living conditions of the elderly in this new millenium.

The main activities of the institute may be divided into the works of research, education, and publication. For research activities, the institute collects and arranges materials related to gerontology, and exchanges academic works written by foreign or domestic scholars in order to understand better and solve the attendant problems of aging societies. For education, the institute searches for the possibility of interdisciplinary studies with inclusive interests among such related fields as Public Welfare, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Biology, and Medicine, whose interests are associated partly with the elderly and the symptoms of aging. With its publication business, finally, the institute contributes to deepening a systematic approach toward the actual circumstances of the elderly. The institute is also obliged to diagnose the real and present problems of the elderly, and to make inquiries into the prospect of welfare policies designed for the elderly, the necessary information to sustain and manage their daily life, and the facts of their social, psychological and physical unfitness for socio-cultural change. Moreover, to put the obligation in practice, the institute set up and has operated a graduate school of the elderly since September-2001, which is conducive to enhancing the living condition of the elderly in its local community.

This Institute of Gerontology, for its purpose and work, has under its banner the following research departments: the department of the elderly welfare policy studies, the department of the elderly socio-cultural studies, the department of the elderly medical studies, and the department of the biological studies of aging.