Ministry of Education Increases STEM R&D Budget by 16%... 82.5 Billion KRW Support for 3,300 Researchers

Next Year's Science and Engineering R&D Budget 595.8 Billion KRW... Increased from This Year's Main Budget
Over 3,300 Researchers in Science and Engineering Selected, 12 Million KRW Support for Master's Programs
New Research-Related Projects Also Launched... Funding Allocated to 'National Research Institutes' and Others

The Ministry of Education has selected over 3,300 STEM researchers and will provide research incentives to allow them to focus on their studies and research. Research funding for STEM fields alone amounts to 82.5 billion KRW, and support for master's and doctoral students as well as university-affiliated research institutes will also be expanded.

On the 2nd, the Ministry of Education announced that it has allocated a total of 595.8 billion KRW for national R&D (research and development) in STEM fields in next year’s budget, an increase of 15.8% from this year’s main budget of 514.7 billion KRW. Previously, the government set the total national R&D budget for next year at 29.6783 trillion KRW, an 11.8% increase from this year.

First, the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea have selected 3,301 researchers leading STEM research and will provide a total of 82.5 billion KRW in research funding. Looking at the projects individually, the "Research Incentives for Master’s and Doctoral Students" targets a total of 2,172 students, including 1,350 master’s students and 822 doctoral students, to enable them to focus on their studies. Master’s students receive 12 million KRW per year, and doctoral students receive up to 50 million KRW over two years as research funding related to their thesis.

The "Postdoctoral Domestic and Overseas Training Program" provides initial job opportunities for postdoctoral researchers and offers training and research opportunities at domestic and overseas universities and research institutions to ensure uninterrupted research activities. A total of 566 researchers were selected. Among them, 220 overseas trainees receive 60 million KRW for one year, and 346 domestic trainees receive up to 180 million KRW over three years. Additionally, the "Postdoctoral Growth-Type Collaborative Research" program pairs postdoctoral researchers with outstanding full-time faculty members as mentees and mentors to conduct joint research. A total of 214 teams comprising 563 researchers were selected. Each team receives up to 300 million KRW annually for three years to conduct research.

Based on the increased budget, new and expanded research-related projects will also be introduced. A representative example is the "National Research Laboratory (NRL 2.0)" and "Glocal Lab" projects, which focus on supporting university-affiliated research institutes. The National Research Laboratory project selects and supports "national representative-level research institutes" that conduct world-class research, with the Ministry of Science and ICT also contributing funding.

"Glocal Lab" is a financial support project aimed at developing university research institutes as regional hubs for basic science research. It supports not only local areas but also the metropolitan area, expanding and reorganizing the existing university-focused research institute project with an investment of 11.9 billion KRW.

New projects supporting university-affiliated researchers, such as "Future Challenge Research Support" and "Glocal R&D Support," will also be introduced. "Future Challenge Research Support" has a budget of 5 billion KRW for next year and supports research teams engaged in multidisciplinary collaborative research within STEM fields. "Glocal R&D Support" is a financial support project for researchers at non-metropolitan universities, with a budget of 13.7 billion KRW.

The Ministry of Education plans to concretize project plans through policy research and collecting opinions from STEM fields to ensure the success of these new projects. Choi Eun-hee, Director of Talent Policy at the Ministry of Education, stated, "Since basic academic disciplines in STEM fields have been the foundation not only for academic development but also for national economic growth, we will create solid conditions so that the next generation of scholars and researchers in basic academic fields within universities can conduct research stably."