Completion of National Map of Research Facilities... Frontline Response to COVID-19 and SoBuJang

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] Mr. Kim Hyuksin, who runs a venture company, needed to identify potential issues that could arise during the mass production of the semiconductor material he developed. The place he found was the 'K-Facility Search Service.' Through this service, he was able to reserve and utilize the 'Specialized Semiconductor Integrated Process Research Facility,' a research support facility in the semiconductor field that supports prototype development stages, and identify problems with the material he developed.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 6th that it has launched the 'National Research Facility Search and Reservation Service' (K-Facility), which can be actively used to localize materials, parts, and equipment, and to solve social issues such as COVID-19 infectious diseases.

This service is a map-based platform that allows easy searching of over 280 national research facilities scattered nationwide, which support science and technology research and development. It will be provided from the 7th of this month through the 'ZEUS National Research Facility Equipment Comprehensive Information Service.'

A research facility refers to an independent research space operated by integrating research equipment alone or together to support specific research and development activities (testing, analysis, measurement, education, training, etc.).

The government conducted a status survey of national research facilities nationwide, collected basic information on 282 research facilities, registered them in K-Facility, assigned management numbers uniformly, and mapped them.

By utilizing K-Facility, one can check which research facilities in Korea have what equipment and are conducting research at which process and technology development stages. Users can directly find research facilities through classifications by supportable technology fields (physics, chemistry, biology, earth science, environment, IT, etc.), technology development stages (basic research - experiment - prototype production - commercialization - business), and current issues (materials, parts, equipment, infectious diseases, etc.). The searched research facilities can be reserved immediately.

Lee Seokrae, Director of the Performance Evaluation Policy Bureau, stated, "Research facilities are weapons that science and technology researchers can actively utilize for research and development, as well as social overhead capital (SOC) in the science and technology community." He added, "The reservation information service centered on research facilities is expected to further promote open research."