There are global concerns about a perceived disconnect between the educational preparation of nursing students as competent beginning practitioners and the expectations of employers about new graduates' work readiness. This is a significant issue as newly graduated nurses are responsible for delivering independent care in a competent manner. As Korean nursing education has focused on reducing the theory-practice gap and improving work readiness by implementing competency-based education, there is an increasing demand to investigate the nursing competencies new graduates require for their professional practice in the Korean context.The overall aim of this study was to explore nursing competencies required for newly graduated nurses in Korea. The specific research questions for the study were 1) Which nursing competencies are required by newly graduated nurses in Korea?, and 2) What level of nursing competency is expected of registered nurses at the point of registration? Content analysis assisted by the computer-assisted content analysis program, Leximancer, was conducted to explore how nursing competence was used in the global and Korean literature. The findings were that there was a lack of evidence to identify and evaluate nursing competencies for entry-level practice in the Korean literature and they mainly focused on either nurses' competencies in practice or nursing students' competencies in education separately.The study employed an exploratory sequential mixed method design, guided by Benner's 'From Novice to Expert' theory. This study consisted of three phases. In the first qualitative phase, an integrative literature review was conducted to identify which nursing competencies were required by new nursing graduates in Korea. In the second phase, a questionnaire was developed. Bondy's modified scale was chosen as a measurement scale. The survey was tested for content validity by a panel of experts and readability by bilingual (Korean and English) nurses. In the third phase, a cross-sectional survey was conducted to explore competency levels at the point of registration from different perspectives, including nurse educators, nurse managers, newly graduated nurses, and graduate students.Three themes, 10 competency domains and 61 competency items were identified as the required competencies for newly graduated nurses in Korea; new graduates were required to be competent to deliver evidence-informed practice with a patient-centred approach as a professional nurse. In the second phase, the final questionnaire with 53 competencies was developed. The third phase of the COMPETENCIES FOR NEWLY GRADUATED NURSES IN KOREA ii study revealed that both nurse experts and new nurses agreed that new graduates could provide safe and knowledgeable practice when respecting a patient's dignity, privacy and confidentiality, and both perceived that new graduates needed to be closely supported when providing emergency care.This study also revealed that nurse educators' expectations about new graduates' competencies were higher tha...