Hyundai Motor Company and Korea University establishes "Smart Mobility Department”

Hyundai Motor Company announced on May 26 that it will establish a contractual department of academic and master's integration courses, which will be connected to employment, for the first time in Korea to foster key talents who will lead the future mobility industry such as hydrogen and robotics.

The contractual department refers to a system that introduces a customized vocational education system to the university's curriculum at the request of the industry based on Article 8 of the Industry-Academic Cooperation Act.

This is to strengthen the competitiveness in global technology hegemony over the future mobility industry by training world-class engineering leaders with creative convergence capabilities.

To this end, Hyundai Motor Company and Korea University held an agreement ceremony to establish a 'Smart Mobility Department'.

The Smart Mobility Department, which will be operated as the first recruitment-connected academic and master's integration course in Korea, focuses on fostering specialized talent in two fields of △ Hydrogen and △ Robotics, the core of Hyundai Motor's future mobility business.

The students can shorten the duration of their bachelor's and master's courses by one semester each and obtain master's degrees in five years (3.5 years for a bachelor's degree + 1.5 years for a master's degree). In addition, 50 outstanding talents will be selected every year over the next five years, starting with the first student admission in 2023.

The Smart Mobility Department will be run based on a student-centered specialized curriculum, which is customized for Hyundai Motor.

The curriculum has been jointly developed by Hyundai Motor and Korea University to foster practical talent that can be immediately put into the front-line R&D field without additional job training after graduation, and Hyundai Motor's current researchers will participate as adjunct professors.

In addition, flexible and diverse semester systems, online and offline lectures, and modular courses will be opened and operated, focusing on cultivating basic competencies such as △ humanities, △ technology, and communications, and major competencies such as △ hydrogen, robot, and software. This allows students to grow into next-generation engineering leaders with creative comprehensive thinking capabilities as well as professional skills related to the job.

In particular, it is planning an interdisciplinary convergence education program that combines knowledge education such as humanities, psychology, and business administration, as well as engineering fields such as chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical and electronic, and computers.

The students will also be provided with various benefits to improve academic achievement. They will receive full scholarships for five years of the integrated course and will also be given opportunities to participate in industrial projects, presentations at academic conferences, tours of overseas research institutes, and on-site mentoring.

Employment to Hyundai Motor will be guaranteed after graduation, while the ways to support the best talent in each major field to enter a Ph.D. program at an overseas university are being considered as well.

At the signing ceremony, Hyundai Motor President Jang Jae-hoon said, "Hyundai's competitiveness in the future car market depends on securing talented people with innovative capabilities. Hyundai Motor will provide support for fostering world-class engineering leaders based on exemplary industry-academic cooperation with Korea University."

Jung Jin-taek, president of Korea University, said, "Korea University has many excellent professors in the field of hydrogen and robotics, and especially has the excellent educational infrastructure and administrative systems to support the operation of contractual departments. We will do our best to ensure that graduates from smart mobility departments become key talents for Hyundai Motor"

Hyundai Motor Group, including Hyundai Motor, Kia Mobis, Hyundai Glovis, and Hyundai Autoever, has been working with major Korean universities such as Korea University, Yonsei University, Hanyang University, and KAIST since 2013. They have operated contractual departments for master's degrees to foster future mobility talents such as autonomous driving, software, and electronic control, and has produced more than 200 researchers for Hyundai Motor Group.

In addition, excellent talent enrolled in master's and doctorate courses will be selected to provide scholarship support, as well as benefits such as conducting research tasks with field mentors and practical education. After graduation, the "research scholarship student system," which is hired as a researcher at Hyundai Motor Group, can also be supported. More than 2,000 researchers have been produced through the research scholarship system, which has been in effect since 2003.

Reported by Smart City Today