These days, since production and consumption have become more and more globalized, shortened time spent on logistics has become one of the most important competitive edges for survival. This has led businesses to give more priority to efficient logistics management in the global SCM. Therefore, countries like France, the UK, Germany, Singapore, Hong Kong are actively involved in establishing undergraduate and graduate programs in educational institutions to train and foster logistics experts.

Korea has long been looking for a dramatic transformation into a high value added industry oriented economy. Thus, securing international competitiveness in the service sectors including logistics industries has also been promoted as a national strategy. We are achieving outstanding results in expanding transportation industries and logistics infrastructures, but still fall behind in the software aspects such as logistics informatization and education. In particular, education of logistics experts with international competitiveness is an important decision factor for choosing regional logistics centers for multinational corporations. Thus, training and fostering competent logistics experts is an urgent task of utmost priority.

In the last past 100 years, Incheon has made great contributions in the international trade as the gateway to the capital region of Republic of Korea. Incheon has the Incheon International Airport which is designated as a free economic zone and has a chance to realize the vision of becoming the hub of logistics and business center in the Northeast Asia. Incheon has emerged as the center for industry clusters, IT, and logistics centers which are the core competencies for establishing the hub nation of the Northeast Asian economies.

The Korean government has promulgated a policy to foster a number of experts in international logistics activities as one of 7 major tasks in the roadmap towards becoming hub of Northeast Asia. In response to this, the Incheon National University has answered to the nation's call and applied for establishing a logistics specialized education program in 2003. Financial support was given based on the importance of its urgency, and the establishment of the Graduate School of Logistics in Northeast Asia was formally approved. From 2004, the first ever graduate school in Korea specialized in logistics and supply chain management has started its education programs, and took on the important roles of training logistics experts of international standards.