Dankook building biomedical cluster on Cheonan campus

Students of Dankook University’s College of Pharmacy inspect drugs in a laboratory at the university’s Cheonan campus in South Chungcheong Province. The university is making efforts to build a biomedical cluster at the campus. / Courtesy of Dankook University

By Chung Hyun-chae

Dankook University is establishing a biomedical cluster at its Cheonan campus in South Chungcheong Province, combining medicine, pharmacology and biotechnology.

“We are in the process of building the biomedical cluster at the Cheonan campus by taking advantage of our strengths in medical science and biotechnology,” Dankook University President Chang Ho-sung told The Korea Times.

He said the campus can create synergy as it houses the colleges of medicine, dentistry and pharmacy, life and resources science, natural sciences and convergence technology.

The biomedical cluster is part of the university’s ambitious project of specializing its Cheonan campus in biotechnology (BT).

The project calls for Dankook’s other campus in Jukjeon, Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, to concentrate on information technology (IT) and cultural content technology (CT).

The Cheonan campus houses about 20 research centers of biomedical companies including Daikin Industries, a global manufacturer of fluorine chemical products.

“We are strengthening ties between industry and academia,” Chang said.

The university plans to create a joint training program for its students in cooperation with Daikin Industries. It will also send the students to the company for an internship program.

In addition, the university has conducted joint research with about 20 pharmaceutical companies in an effort to step up collaboration with them.

Dankook was named one of the leading universities in academic-industrial cooperation by the Ministry of Education this year for the fifth straight year.

“We are also helping students start their own businesses and transfer their technology to businesses,” Chang said.

Chang, who said he has experience running a business in the U.S., added, “From my experience, I realized that one can learn business principles by starting his or her own business.”

Foreign languages and regional studies

Dankook’s Cheonan campus is also focused on foreign languages and regional studies.

“I would like to nurture regional specialists with not only language proficiency but also expertise on a specific country or region,” Chang said.

The campus has the College of Foreign Languages, which runs 10 departments in Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Russian, English, Portuguese, Mongolian studies and Middle Eastern studies.

The university set up the Department of Mongolian Studies in Korea in 1993. It has a strong exchange program under which students can choose to study for a year at a university in Mongolia.

It also exchanges faculty with four Mongolian universities, including the National University of Mongolia and the Mongolian University of Science & Technology.

Chang said each foreign language department takes a pragmatic approach to their studies, aiming to foster experts on each country or region.

“Given that the university’s motto is 'Truth and Service,' Dankook has sought ways to help countries that are poorer than Korea since the day my father, Dr. Chang Choong-sik, began serving as the university’s first president,” he said.

Dankook has continued to send its students to Mongolia for volunteer work and academic exchanges.

“We are working on publishing Korean-Mongolian and Mongolian-Korean dictionaries,” Chang said. “Although we don’t think that a large number of people will read our dictionaries, we are doing this to help Mongolia in return for what our nation received from other powerful countries in the past.”