On the 4th, Bucheon City held the "Monthly Bucheon Plus" event to award the outstanding policy proposal teams of the "2026 Bucheon City Innovative Narae Research Group" and conducted a policy briefing to share the top research task with public officials.

The Innovative Narae Research Group is a university-local government cooperative policy research group that discovers policy alternatives for municipal issues by combining the creative ideas of youth with the practical experience of public officials.

This year, 48 people—including students from 4 universities within the jurisdiction (Catholic University of Bucheon, Bucheon University, Seoul Theological University, and Yuhan University) and public officials—formed 10 teams to conduct policy research centered on four major fields: public livelihood, future, space, and administration.

At the research task presentation and evaluation held last August, a total of 8 teams—1 top excellence team, 3 excellence teams, and 4 effort teams—were selected as outstanding policy proposal teams based on the policy tasks and research outcomes discovered by each team.

During this event, awards were presented to 1 team for the Top Excellence Award and 3 teams for the Excellence Award. The "Kwon-Lee-Yu-Sim" team (Catholic University students Yu Joo-young, Kwon Won-min, Shim Hyun-ji, and Lee Seo-yeon), which received the Top Excellence Award, presented the policy tasks discovered through their research and shared their achievements with public officials.

In particular, this year yielded results where research tasks were adopted as official policy proposals. The research tasks of 10 teams were registered as policy proposals on the e-People (Kookmin Sinmungo) portal. Among them, the "Reborn" team’s (Seoul Theological University students Lee So-yeon, Shin Yun-seo, and Lee Chae-eun) proposal, "Turning Wasted Recyclables Back into Resources," was adopted through proposal review and is scheduled to be reflected in municipal administration.

The proposal involves attaching QR codes to recycling sorting stations so that citizens can easily check the correct disposal methods for household waste. The city expects this to help encourage correct separation and discharge while raising citizens' awareness of resource circulation.

This achievement is an example where policy ideas jointly discovered by youth and public officials did not stop at research but were adopted as official policy proposals, demonstrating the potential for policy discovery through university-local government cooperation to be utilized in actual administration.

The city plans to continue expanding the reflection of outstanding policy proposals in municipal administration through cooperation with relevant departments, and to strive so that the fresh ideas of youth lead to policies felt by citizens.

Lee Sung-dong, Head of the Policy Planning Division of Bucheon City, said, "The fresh perspectives of youth and the practical experience of public officials are meeting to discover new policy alternatives," adding, "We will continue to support the Innovative Narae Research Group so that it serves as a channel to expand youth participation in municipal administration and discover policies that help citizens' daily lives."

[Copyright (c) Global Economic Times. All Rights Reserved.]