Sharing This Year's Plans and Identifying Demand for New Projects
The K-Health Future Initiative of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute announced on February 26 that it will hold "Korean ARPA-H Connect 2026" on March 5 at EL Tower in Yangjae-dong, Seoul, in order to present this year's implementation plan for the "Korean-style ARPA-H Project" and to identify demand for new projects.
The Korean-style ARPA-H Project is a challenge-driven national research and development program aimed at solving national-level grand challenges in the healthcare sector, such as future infectious disease pandemics and crises in essential medical services. Its core element is a structure of direct and continuous communication between Program Managers (PMs) and researchers, and it seeks to move beyond conventional, one-way, information-delivery-focused briefing sessions toward a communication model that directly listens to voices from the research field and jointly explores project directions.
Lee Seungkyu, Head of the PM Center at the K-Health Future Initiative, explained, "We prepared this event to implement an 'on-site communication model' in which PMs and researchers come together in one place to share directions for planning new projects and freely discuss them, thereby strengthening PMs' capabilities in defining challenging problems and establishing a foundation for discovering new projects."
The event will begin with remarks from officials of the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Initiative, followed by sessions on: an overview of the current status of the Korean-style ARPA-H initiative and key plans for 2026; presentations on directions for planning new projects by each PM; and a PM-researcher roundtable for open discussion.
In particular, during the PM-researcher roundtable, researchers who register in advance will be grouped by PM, and in-depth discussions will be held in a free-discussion format. Unlike conventional briefing-centered events, this roundtable is designed to have PMs directly hear researchers' proposals and field opinions, with a focus on linking them to new projects.
Seon Kyung, Head of the K-Health Future Initiative, said, "True innovation is completed when researchers in the field participate together," adding, "As it is being held for the first time this year, the Korean-style ARPA-H Connect will become a starting point where PMs and researchers pose challenging questions together and connect those questions to innovative technologies."
Applications to participate in the event can be submitted through the K-Health Future Initiative website until 3:00 p.m. on March 3.
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