South Gyeongsang Province has begun building a support system spanning regional and municipal governments to back Gyeongsang National University, which is vying for selection as a "2026 Flagship National University Package Support University (Creating 10 Seoul National Universities)." The plan aims to bring together the region's industrial base and administrative capabilities to boost Gyeongsang National University's competitiveness and develop South Gyeongsang Province into an education and research hub for the aerospace and defense growth engines.
According to the province on the 3rd, the Ministry of Education will select three of the nation's nine flagship national universities that are most prepared, and intensively support them in a package form covering growth-engine brand colleges and artificial intelligence (AI) education and research hubs. As 100 billion won will be invested in the selected universities over five years, not only universities' innovation capabilities but also their regional industrial base and level of super-regional cooperation will serve as key evaluation criteria.
Accordingly, the province joined hands with Gyeongsang National University, Busan and Ulsan to sign an agreement for growth-engine-linked regional talent development and balanced national growth. It then signed an agreement with Jinju and Sacheon for developing core talent in aerospace, defense and physical AI and for revitalizing specialized campuses, securing both super-regional cooperation and a regional execution framework at once.
The two agreements each handle a super-regional cooperation network expanding into Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam and a regional execution framework rooted in the industrial sites of Jinju and Sacheon. They carry significant meaning in that they have translated the regional industrial base and readiness, super-regional hub status, and cooperation plans between local governments and universities—which the Ministry of Education weighs heavily—into actual agreements and role divisions.
Gyeongsang National University's project readiness is also assessed as a strength. Its brand college, the College of Aerospace and Defense, has completed installation procedures based on the academic system of the existing College of Aerospace, allowing it to begin student recruitment and operation from the 2027 academic year, earlier than other flagship national universities.
Its specialized convergence research institute has also been pursuing joint establishment and AI/AX (AI transformation) talent development with UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) since February. On July 14, it signed an agreement to establish a joint research institute that will also include KAI (Korea Aerospace Industries), with an official launch slated for September.
In the AI education and research field, the university newly established an AI Strategy Committee reporting directly to the president, and completed the installation of an AI Convergence Institute in April this year to oversee university-wide AI education, convergence research and industry-academia cooperation. It is also reorganizing its academic structure and curriculum around the School of AI Computer Engineering and the School of Manufacturing AI. South Gyeongsang Province plans to concentrate its capabilities toward the final selection by adding local governments' super-regional cooperation and regional industrial support to Gyeongsang National University's education and research innovation, which has entered its execution track.
Kim Seong-gyu, director general of South Gyeongsang Province's Education and Youth Bureau, said, "This business agreement goes beyond a mere expression of support—it is a concrete promise to back Gyeongsang National University's prepared capabilities with the Busan-Ulsan-Gyeongnam industrial base and local governments' execution power." He added, "We will lend our strength to the end so that Gyeongsang National University is selected as a package support university and South Gyeongsang Province leaps forward as an education and research hub for Korea's aerospace and defense growth engines."
