Universities and government-funded research institutes are breaking down walls and beginning to collaborate on joint research.
The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Education held an on-site meeting to strengthen university-government-funded research institute cooperation on the 15th at Kyungpook National University in Daegu. Earlier, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Education announced a strategy to break down barriers between universities and government-funded research institutes at the 4th Talent Development Strategy Meeting held last March. The meeting was arranged to gather feedback from the field and promote the creation of a voluntary collaboration ecosystem.
At the meeting that day, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Education introduced policy directions for cooperation that would remove barriers between academia and research and enable joint research and investment.
Kyungpook National University and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced their collaboration plans. Starting this month, they will operate a joint research laboratory. The joint research laboratory, composed of ETRI researchers and Kyungpook National University faculty, graduate, and doctoral students, will conduct joint research reflecting the needs of the region's future high-tech industries, including mobility, robotics, healthcare, and semiconductors. They are also reviewing the establishment of joint research venture companies and the introduction of a system for academia-professor collaboration and academia-researcher exchange to lead to commercialization of the research outcomes.
The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Education plan to actively support collaboration between universities and government-funded research institutes by advancing pilot projects to support personnel exchanges between academia and research. This initiative supports activities such as identifying research and development topics, generating ideas, and engaging in joint research through the movement of university faculty or research teams to government-funded research institutes.
Lee Chang-yun, the first vice minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, noted, "Government-funded research institutes, which have supported national industrial and technological development, will share their accumulated excellent infrastructure with universities and become the center of open cooperation to enhance our nation's research and development capabilities. Through strong collaboration between academia and the 12 national strategic technologies, we will seek support measures to strengthen uninterrupted full-cycle collaboration from fundamental research to technology commercialization."
Vice Minister Oh Seok-hwan of the Ministry of Education also stated, "Starting this year, the 'Regional Innovation-Centered University Support System (RISE)' will be fully implemented to foster universities as hubs of regional development," adding, "We will actively support the creation of various university-research collaboration models linked with local industries and characteristics in conjunction with the Ministry of Science and ICT's 'Academia-Research Cooperation Platform Project,' ensuring that regional collaboration hubs can spread nationwide."