YU’s attached research institutes - Institute of Information & Communication (Head Park Yong-wan) and Institute of Life Sciences (Head Kim Choon-young) - were selected as College Central Research Centers in the science and engineering sector in 2021 by the Ministry of Education. 

 The ‘College Central Research Center Support Project’ that is hosted by the Ministry of Education and National Research Foundation is a core national policy project for the science and engineering sector that aims at constructing research hubs within universities to support infrastructure of university attached research centers to specialize college research institutes and strengthen their expertise, while also providing support to foster outstanding young researchers.

 With the selection for this project, the YU Institute of Information and Communication will receive a total of 7.8 billion won from state and local government funding from nine years starting this year until May of 2030 to pursue R&D projects related to future automobiles.

 YU Institute of Information and Communication Head Park Yong-wan (Professor Information and Communication Engineering) stated, “R&D related to future automobiles tend to focus on configuring autonomous driving functions, and there is relatively insufficient research on procuring the safety and reliability of future automobiles. Malfunctions of sensors, radars, cameras, etc. that are the core technologies of future cars can result in serious safety issues.” He added, “We will focus on research to procure reliability and ultra-safety of core parts to secure industrial competitiveness in the future automobiles sector.”

 The YU Institute of Information and Communication plans to pursue projects for gaining ultra-safety and reliability for the operation of future cars through the development of life expectancy prediction technologies and safety diagnosis of environment-detecting sensors of future cars. Another major objective of the project is to strengthen domestic and foreign competitiveness of local automobile parts companies through automobile and ICT technology convergence, while also expanding the localization ratio of automobile conversion parts. It is also expected to do its role as a hub research center for fostering human resources for future automobiles, through joint research and cultivating experts through industry-academic cooperation.

 The YU Institute of life Sciences will also receive a total of 6.9 billion KRW until May of 2030 to pursue the ‘inter-disciplinary convergence sarcopenia diagnosis and intervention solution development and commercialization to respond to the ultra-aged society’ project. 

 The Institute of Life Sciences that conducts research with the goal of improving quality of life will engage in convergence research based on medicine, kinematics, ergonomics, food nutrition science, and IT sectors to come up with an integrated solution for ‘sarcopenia’ that causes muscle loss among senior citizens. For this, Professor of Food and Nutrition Kim Choon-young that heads the institute, Professor of Clothing and Fashion Park Soon-ji, Professor of Electronic Engineering Lee Chan-soo, Professor of Physical Education Shin Sung-hoo, and Professor of Medicine (Orthopedics) Kim Gi-beom, and other experts of various sectors will participate in this study.

 Chief of the YU institute of Life Science Kim Choon-young said, “Our goal is to share awareness about sarcopenia that will be given a disease code starting this year to the general public, and to enhance accuracy of diagnosis and prescription to provide practical benefits to senior citizens.” She added, “We will collaborate with companies to commercialize research results and we will also develop functional exercise programs and develop exercise assistance instruments and functional foods. As we have entered the ultra-aged society, it is also crucial to collaborate with local governments to create efficient health policies while improving the health of Korean senior citizens. We will foster experts through continued collaboration with companies and research centers related with local governments, and promote overseas networking in order to become a global hub research center for sarcopenia.”