Research Life Encouragement Allowance for Science and Engineering Graduate Students Begins Disbursement at End of June

Call for New Participating Universities for the Second Half of the Year Open Until the 21st

The "Research Life Encouragement Allowance," designed to guarantee a minimum standard of living for graduate students in science and engineering, began full-scale disbursement last month, and a new round of applications for participating universities in the second half of the year has started this month.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea announced on July 1 that universities participating in the "Science and Engineering Research Life Encouragement Allowance Support Program" for the first half of the year have entered the full-scale allowance payment phase since the end of last month, and that applications for new participating universities for the second half will be accepted until the 21st of this month.

The Science and Engineering Research Life Encouragement Allowance Support Program will invest a total of 979 billion won over nine years from last year until 2033. The program guarantees a minimum monthly living allowance of 800,000 won for master's students and 1.1 million won for doctoral students, enabling science and engineering graduate students to focus on their research without financial burden. The total budget for this year is 60 billion won.

For the first half of this year, 29 universities were selected in April, consulting has been completed for 14 universities, and universities such as Yonsei University and Pusan National University, which have completed internal preparations, began allowance payments at the end of June. It is expected that all 29 participating universities will be able to make payments in the near future, and approximately 50,000 graduate students in science and engineering will have their minimum living standards guaranteed this year.

To prevent confusion in the payment and management of the allowance, a "Program Operation Guideline" has been established, and efforts have been made to actively communicate with university staff through briefing sessions and other means.

The application process for the second half of the year runs for one month, from June 20 to July 21. The evaluation of applicant universities will proceed in two stages: eligibility review and selection evaluation. After the final selection of participating universities, detailed operational consulting will be conducted before allowance payments begin. Announcements and schedules for the second half can be found on the website of the National Research Foundation of Korea.

To support smooth program operations at participating universities, efforts are also underway to identify system improvement tasks in collaboration with the field. The aim is to establish a standard model that allows for more convenient payment and management of student researcher compensation for students, professors, and university (industry-academic cooperation foundation) staff, given the different payment and management procedures by university and funding source.

Hong Soonjung, Director General of the Future Talent Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, "We expect a more challenging research culture to spread on university campuses," and added, "We will continue to provide unwavering support to ensure a stable transition to the new system."