Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) has been awarded the highest S grade in the "2026 National University Development Program Performance Evaluation" conducted by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea, in recognition of the university's comprehensive innovation achievements, including educational innovation, strengthened research competitiveness, enhanced global capabilities, and resource sharing with the local community.

Accordingly, JBNU will receive an incentive of KRW 22,470,000,000, securing a total of KRW 32,450,000,000 in funding from the National University Development Program this year. Based on this, the university plans to further advance AI-based educational innovation, strengthen research competitiveness and industry–university collaboration capabilities, and accelerate follow-up projects to foster the regional education ecosystem and share university resources.

The National University Development Program is a flagship financial support program of the Ministry of Education designed to cultivate talent who will lead regional and national development and to enhance university competitiveness through autonomous innovation at national universities. This year's evaluation moved beyond the previous education-centered approach and comprehensively assessed innovation outcomes across the entire university, including vision and governance, education, research, and the sharing of university resources.

The National Research Foundation positively evaluated JBNU's linkage of its comprehensive development plan, "Global Top-Tier JBNU 2030," with the Program's education, research, sharing, vision, and governance components, and its concretization around 15 core strategic tasks across four areas. In particular, attention was paid to JBNU's establishment of collaborative frameworks with local governments, industry, and global institutions, and to its integration of major funding programs such as Glocal University 30, RISE, and BK21 Project Division to pursue the initiative along three pillars: Education (E) for fostering creative and convergent talent, Research Excellence (R), and Contribution to the Region and the World (C).

In education, the university received high marks for establishing an AI College and an AI Convergence Education Center directly under the President and for instituting a mandatory 9-credit basic AI education requirement for all students. The university also expanded major-linked AI instruction through AI coordinators, increased AI teaching-learning support and AI-support courses, and set an ambitious goal of achieving a 100% completion rate for the basic AI education across the student body by 2030; these measures were recognized for their innovation and boldness.

The academic system that dramatically expanded students' freedom to choose majors was also highlighted as a major achievement. JBNU guaranteed one of the largest levels of major-selection flexibility among national universities, with 86.6% of entrants admitted without a declared major and an 82.9% placement rate into students' first-choice majors. The university established a flexible academic structure—developing major and career tracks, offering hybrid cross-departmental courses, and implementing RC programs that combine residence and learning—and implemented an academic advising professor system to help new students in each division adapt to university life and explore majors; these initiatives were reflected in the evaluation.

Efforts to innovate basic academic and liberal arts education were also recognized. The development of the Jeonbuk Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences as a regionally based research hub, and the establishment of undergraduate research credit systems and combined bachelor's-master's pathways to cultivate future scholars in the humanities and social sciences, were evaluated as exemplary practices.

In strengthening global capabilities, achievements included tailored short-term overseas programs for students, diversification of the exchange-student selection system, expansion of credit-exchange programs linking advanced students' majors with practical work, and increased overseas opportunities for disadvantaged students. JBNU dispatched 1,175 exchange students—ranking first among national flagship universities for the second consecutive year—and attracted 3,622 international students, ranking first in international student recruitment rate. Plans to expand recruitment hubs based on JBNU's overseas international centers and to establish international-student–focused academic operations and settlement support systems at the Namwon Glocal Campus were also positively evaluated.

In research, JBNU was recognized for refining a performance-driven faculty personnel system and research support framework. The university established phased support plans—from recruiting outstanding faculty and creating an environment conducive to focused research to supporting research infrastructure and disseminating and rewarding outcomes—and strengthened the foundation for research excellence by expanding differentiated performance-based bonuses and introducing qualitative evaluation in tenure review.

Support tailored to researchers' life cycles—settlement, development, and achievement generation—and the establishment of research-support personnel systems such as research concierge services and dedicated research managers were also lauded. The number of SCIE-level papers reached 1,701, a 22.2% increase from the previous year, and the university presented strategies to strengthen research competitiveness to improve rankings in global university evaluations such as QS and THE.

In industry–university collaboration, a representative achievement was the tripartite agreement with Jeonbuk Special Self-Governing Province and Hyundai Motor Company to expand the quota of employment-tied contract departments to 65 students. With more than 558 industry-linked research projects conducted annually, JBNU's Industry-Academic Advanced Research Institute and JURIC have built a joint research platform involving universities, research institutions, and companies, and expanded industry-demand–driven convergent research; these efforts were positively evaluated.

In regional co-prosperity and university resource sharing, JBNU was recognized for being the first national university to open 240 research equipment items valued at over KRW 100,000,000 to the local community and for upgrading an integrated research-equipment database. The university also operated a shared education system involving all 17 universities in the province, expanded the collaborative higher-education ecosystem by offering joint remote courses via the flagship national university credit-exchange platform, and established an education cooperation system between Jeonbuk and Jeju.

The establishment of a support system for the high school credit system through agreements with the Jeonbuk Provincial Office of Education and the revision of academic operation regulations, as well as the establishment of an integrated governance for coordinated regional education responses, were also evaluated as regional contribution achievements. Exceeding recruitment targets for regional talent and equal-opportunity admissions, and plans to expand direct support for secondary education through a regionally embedded educational innovation platform, also attracted attention.

President Yang Oh-bong said, “This S grade is recognition of JBNU's comprehensive innovation achievements across university administration, research, industry–university collaboration, global capabilities, and regional contribution, beyond educational innovation.” He added, “Using the secured resources, we will fully mainstream AI, deepen industry–university collaboration linked with growth engines, and further sophisticate our sharing and cooperation systems with the region to leap forward as a flagship university that leads regional and national future growth engines.”