Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) held a New Year's opening ceremony at 11:00 a.m. on January 3 in Donghaeng Hall of the New Silk Road Center, marking a vigorous start to 2022, Im-in (壬寅年).

The ceremony this year was streamed live online and attended only by President Kim Dong-won and Headquarters officials in accordance with social distancing measures due to COVID-19.

The event began with the national observance and was conducted simply, featuring a presentation ceremony for government awards and President Kim Dong-won's New Year greetings.

At the government award presentation, O Mi-yeon, Manager, Graduate School Academic Affairs Division, received the Presidential Citation; Ji Jae-seong, Team Leader, College of Nursing, received the Prime Minister's Citation; and Park Sang-beom, Team Leader, Division of Academic Affairs; Park Jin-seong, Team Leader, Law School; and Jeon Bu-a, Staff, Planning Division, each received the Minister of Education's Citation.

In his New Year's address, President Kim Dong-won said that last year, despite the COVID-19 crisis, JBNU achieved second place among national flagship universities in a global university evaluation; secured national budget allocations including KRW 66.3 billion for reconstruction projects such as the College of Natural Sciences, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and the affiliated high school of the College of Education, and KRW 39.0 billion for facility maintenance; and achieved first place among regional national universities in the university services evaluation for three consecutive years. He said that in the field of industry–university collaboration, JBNU will begin full-scale construction of the Industry–Academia Convergence Plaza to generate regional innovation energy, and that by securing matching investments of KRW 10.0 billion from Jeollabuk-do and Jeonju City, JBNU will invest a total of KRW 27.3 billion by the end of 2023 to establish a hub that will drive regional economic development.

He went on to emphasize creating a safe campus in response to COVID-19, strengthening the quality of education, implementing graduate school innovation projects to become a research-focused university, establishing a system for cultivating creative talent, building support systems to achieve world-class research competitiveness, and cooperating with the local community.

In particular, President Kim stated that JBNU will take the lead in university education reform by attracting the Regional Innovation Platform (RIS) project and the Campus Innovation Park project, further expanding academic exchanges among the 10 national flagship universities it has led, and coordinating systems.

President Kim said that we are facing a tremendous change dividing the pre-COVID-19 era and the with-COVID era, and that how we utilize this will determine the future of the university. He urged adopting an attitude of adaptive innovation (應變創新), to lead change proactively to benefit students, and to pursue innovations that contribute to balanced regional and national development and global competitiveness.