Six scientists have been newly selected for the 'Leader Research' project, which focuses funding on the nation's top researchers for nine years. Fourteen centers have been selected for the 'Leading Research Center,' which supports excellent group research.
The Ministry of Science and ICT announced the selection results for 'Leader Research' and 'Leading Research Center,' which identifies and supports the nation's top researchers and research groups, on the 28th.
'Leader Research' is a project that selectively provides concentrated funding of 800 million won per researcher per year for nine years for world-class researchers. This year, six researchers were selected after in-depth evaluations of creativity, challenge, and capability among 94 researchers who were supported.
The selected researchers are Professor Park Mun-jung of Pohang University of Science and Technology, Professor Hwang Il-du of Pohang University of Science and Technology, Professor Kim Jong-oh of Yeungnam University, Professor Ko Seung-hwan of Seoul National University, Professor Lim Sang-hyuk of Korea University, and Professor Lee Tae-woo of Seoul National University.
Professor Park Mun-jung aims to provide a polymer new material design platform and pioneer a new field of study in precision polymer thermodynamics. Professor Ko Seung-hwan of Seoul National University is working on developing bio-compatible brain chips that blend naturally with brain cells using soft materials that mimic living tissues.
'Leading Research Center' is a mid-to-large-scale collaborative research support project designed for research groups of about 10 to 15 researchers. Centers will receive funding of 1.5 to 2 billion won annually for seven years. This year, 124 centers from 46 universities applied, and 14 centers were ultimately selected.
In particular, the 'Space Service and Manufacturing Research Center,' led by Professor Han Jae-hyeong of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, who was ultimately selected as an Innovative Research Center (IRC), plans to achieve challenging goals such as securing key technologies for space service and manufacturing, implementing a small unmanned space station platform, and space demonstration. The IRC has a larger support scale of 5 billion won per year for 10 years.