Pusan National University (PNU) re-entered the Leaders in Industry-University Cooperation (LINC 3.0) business after five years. The LINC 3.0 project group plans to build a hub in the southeast region where industries, universities, and research institutes cooperate in various projects to coexist with companies.

On September 27th, the LINC 3.0 project group held a business briefing session at the Hyowon Industry-University Cooperation Building (No. 506). On this day, the Introduction of the LINC 3.0 project group, business vision and goals, and projects for the first year were discussed. The LINC 3.0 project group envisioned "building a hub for industrial cooperation in the southeast region that leads the innovation of Digital Green Technology and a Carbon-Neutral era."

LINC 3.0 is a national financial support project supporting industry-university development’s coexistence. This is a follow-up project that has been upgraded based on the results of the 1st LINC and 2nd LINC+ projects. It is also the comprehensive support project for industry-university cooperation with the largest scale among the university support projects of the Ministry of Education. PNU was selected as the first LINC 3.0 technology innovation leading university in the southeast region and received about 5.27 billion won this year, and it can receive about 5.5 billion won every year for the next six years.

PNU has been active as a first-stage LINC university since 2012 but failed to be selected for the second-stage LINC+ project in 2017. The five-year-long gap in business acted as a deduction factor in the LINC 3.0 budgeting criteria. Because of this factor, the amount of LINC 3.0 support for PNU has been partially reduced compared to other universities. The PNU LINC project group said that PNU was selected for support by recognizing qualitative factors such as R&D and industry-university-research cooperation as strengths in this project. Choi Kyung-Min (Director, LINC 3.0 project group) said, "We will do our best to achieve both quantitative and qualitative aspects by proactively conducting the project."

In this project, 27 departments from 7 colleges are working together in three core business areas: human resource training, technology development and commercialization, and sharing and collaboration. These departments participate in capstone design, standard field practice, and start-up course operation and can receive support from extracurricular programs and special lectures on teaching methods conducted by the LINC 3.0 project group. In addition, the LINC project group also carries out programs for technology development, and commercialization, such as industry-university joint technology development, ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) cooperative business operation support, and ALL-SET (coexisting business with a local company) support. Sharing and collaboration projects such as the capstone program linked to the Busan Economic Promotion Agency and establishing an educational environment linked with industry-university-research are also in progress.

The project group plans to use this project as an opportunity to be reborn as an "entrepreneurial university" that leads innovation by coexisting with local companies. The key is establishing a "Tech Alliance," which is an alliance with companies. They aim to create a virtuous cycle between universities and businesses by linking with local companies. Director Choi said, "LINC 3.0 accelerates the work that universities should do on their own with government support, and we will do our best to establish a central hub for industrial cooperation in the southeast region, which is the vision of the business."

Reporter Jo Seung-Wan

Translated by Seo Hae-Seong