Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) RISE Project Group (RISE-Ⅱ3) (Principal Investigator: Professor Park Cheon-woong) has produced a multilingual chemical safety guide, 'Chemical Safety A to Z,' to protect foreign workers employed at local industrial sites.

This achievement is significant as a concrete and tangible example of addressing community problems, which is one of the implementation models of the Ministry of Education's RISE (Regional Innovation-centered University Support System) program.

JBNU's RISE project aims to serve as a demand-driven local innovation model in which the university takes the lead in analyzing regionally specialized industries and labor conditions and develops solutions in partnership with local governments and regional organizations. Within this framework, the JBNU RISE-Ⅱ3 initiative is a one-stop support program for outstanding overseas talent, focusing on linking recruitment, education, employment, and settlement of international students (the REES Link project). Addressing on-site issues in the areas of foreign workers' safety, environment, and labor is among its specific implementation objectives. 

In line with this direction, JBNU collaborated with the Jeonbuk Branch of the Korea Environment Corporation to produce the guide in four languages—Korean, Burmese, Vietnamese, and Indonesian. The aim is to enable the many foreign workers employed in Jeonbuk industrial complexes and manufacturing sites to understand safety guidelines without language barriers.

The booklet contains essential information necessary to prevent accidents in advance. It includes: recognition of risk factors through analysis of domestic and international chemical accident cases and causes; response procedures for situations such as fires and leaks; and guidance on emergency phrases and basic Korean expressions.

In particular, instructions on actions to take in the event of an accident (reporting → initial response → evacuation), hazards of specific chemicals, GHS pictograms, and methods for donning personal protective equipment are presented primarily through visual materials so that foreign workers can easily understand them.

Professor Park Cheon-woong, who is the Principal Investigator of the project, said, "The JBNU RISE-Ⅱ3 project aims for the university to directly analyze locally felt problems and propose solutions. It is highly meaningful that the university, regional organizations, and international students participated together in addressing the safety issues of foreign workers, one of the most close-contact tasks."

Meanwhile, JBNU plans to distribute the guide to local industries and organizations supporting foreigners in cooperation with the Jeonbuk Environmental Headquarters of the Korea Environment Corporation. Going forward, it plans to continuously expand regionally tailored safety-related initiatives in connection with the RISE program.