POSTECH has moved up a gear in its collaboration with industry as it welcomes Hyosung, South Korea’s leading chemical and textile company, onto its campus. Hyosung and POSTECH signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in April 2017 to open a joint research center as part of POSTECH’s “University-Industry Integration (hereinafter UII)” initiative.

POSTECH launched the UII movement last year to take university-industry collaboration to a higher level. POSTECH has been long known for its strong link with industry. The university has topped the recent list of universities publishing the highest proportions of their research output in collaboration with industry, according to Times Higher Education. Yet again, POSTECH’s leadership has been developing even a stronger drive to bring the university and industry closer.

POSTECH’s UIC initiative involves two main projects: 1) establishing on-campus University-Industry Integrated Research Centers and 2) running a University-Industry Professorship program.

POSTECH currently runs two centers – with LG Display founded in April 2016 and with Hyosung, the new partner. LG has been a close partner with POSTECH since the founding years as one of the university’s main buildings was built and named by LG in 1998. Joint research with LG Display on various subjects in display-related fields has been going strong for more than 6 years, and it is poised to reach greater heights with the opening of the Integrated Research Center. With Hyosung, research will focus on steel cords, the company’s main product, with an aim to push Hyosung to the top place in the global market.

There are some universities in the world that run a corporate joint research lab/center on campus such as Rolls-Royce@NTU Corporate Lab at Nanyang Technological University. POSTECH’s U-I Integrated Research Center, however, is the first of its kind in Korea

In addition to the research centers, the University-Industry Professorship forms the essential core of POSTECH’s UIC endeavor. The program allows the university to identify and recruit exceptional researchers as its tenured faculty members in collaboration with corporations. Corporations would make recommendations to the university on competitive researchers who have field-expertise and insights on market-oriented technologies, and the university make the final decision. The salary of U-I Professors will be jointly paid for by the corporation and the university as they are the bridge between the two institutions and will lead joint research to benefit both.

POSTECH has recently hired its first University-Industry Professor with LG Display. Prof. Wook Sung Kim, who held the position of Principal Research Engineer at LG Display where he had worked for over 26 years, is now to lead R&D on post-OLEDs at POSTECH-LG Display Integrated Research Center on campus.

POSTECH will continue expanding its partnership with corporations. President Doh-Yeon Kim comments, “POSTECH strives to create value and make direct contributions to the society not only through its research but collaboration with the business sector.”