Selected as a 'Top-Tier' Project to Collaborate with World-Leading Research Institutions Including MIT

Ministry of Science and ICT to Provide Approximately 2.3 Billion KRW Annually for 10 Years

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 29th that it has selected four research projects for the 'Top-tier Research Institution Cooperation Platform Establishment and Joint Research Support Project,' which supports joint research between domestic research institutions and world-class research institutions.

The Top-tier project selects consortia composed of excellent domestic research institutions and world-class research institutions from the United States, the European Union (EU), and others, providing up to approximately 2.3 billion KRW annually over three phases for a maximum of 10 years to establish cooperative systems between institutions.

The selected projects are led by two domestic academic institutions and two government-funded research institutes. The Institute for Basic Science (IBS) and Japan's RIKEN will pioneer new technology to produce extreme rare isotopes using the Korean heavy-ion accelerator 'RAON'.

Seoul National University and Stanford University in the United States will conduct research linking hydrogen utilization with carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology to use synthetic fuel made from carbon dioxide as a hydrogen storage material.

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States plan to establish a foundation for developing energy and autonomous driving systems applying artificial intelligence (AI) in the electrochemistry field.

Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology and Belgium's Rega Institute for Medical Research will develop international joint therapeutic agents and vaccine candidates for future infectious disease response.

Lee Chang-yoon, the 1st Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “We will do our best to expand the top-tier cooperation platform led by Korean researchers and establish a strategic operational system to make the Republic of Korea the world's leading R&D hub.”