Companies and Universities Jointly Foster ICT Talent...525 Papers in Six Years

Ministry of Science and ICT Supports 46 Industry-Academia Collaboration Projects at 23 Universities
730 Courses Developed and Offered... Awards Presented to 6 Outstanding Students and Research Teams

The ICT talent development program, through which companies and universities jointly provide education and conduct research, had produced 525 Science Citation Index (SCI)-level papers and 579 patent applications by the end of last year. The results came from linking problems faced by industry with research projects and supporting the participation of students from undergraduate through graduate school.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said it held the “成果-Sharing Conference on the Integrated Bachelor’s-Master’s Program for ICT Talent Development” on November 13 at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Seoul, together with the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP).

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The program supports companies and universities in jointly developing research and educational curricula, and enables undergraduate and graduate students to take part in projects that address problems in industry. It incorporates problem-based learning (PBL), with the aim of helping students build expertise by researching real-world technological challenges faced by industry.

The Ministry of Science and ICT provides up to KRW 250 million per project annually for up to five years. This year, 46 projects are underway at 23 universities nationwide.

Since the program began in 2020, 730 courses have been developed and offered in ICT fields including artificial intelligence (AI), AI semiconductors, cybersecurity and digital convergence, through the end of last year. During this period, 1,266 master’s and doctoral students completed the courses, and the program produced 525 SCI-level papers and 579 patent applications.

At the event, three outstanding students and three research teams with strong records in operating research and educational curricula were selected for awards.

Jeon Yunmo of Dongguk University received the Deputy Prime Minister’s Award in the student category. Jeon took part in a software-focused shipbuilding research and educational program, developed software to integrate and control different simulators, and published a related paper. Jeon began participating in research as an undergraduate, continued through a master’s program and a corporate internship, and went on to secure a job at a related company.

The IITP President’s Awards went to Kim Ihyeon of Korea University, who developed a depression prediction model using a multimodal large language model (LLM), and Lee Yubin of Sungkyunkwan University, who conducted research on emotion recognition and LLM agents.

In the outstanding project category, newly established this year, the research team led by Professor Kim Dongwoo of Dongguk University received the Deputy Prime Minister’s Award. The team expanded corporate participation while running industry-academia collaborative educational programs that applied AI to culture, healthcare and security.

The research team led by Professor Park Eunil of Sungkyunkwan University and the team led by Professor Lee Seungchan of Chonnam National University each received an IITP President’s Award. They were recognized for achievements in data science education in gaming and extended reality (XR), and in integrated education covering next-generation communications, semiconductors and AI, respectively.

The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to continue expanding support for industry-academia collaboration in talent development, from corporate internships at the undergraduate level to specialized graduate education and global joint research.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.