■The Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB) and the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) announced on the 23rd that they signed a business agreement to designate a joint cooperation center and collaborate on research at the headquarters of KRIBB in Daejeon. Through this agreement, KRIBB and KRICT plan to designate a joint cooperation center in the advanced bio field and actively promote personnel exchanges and joint research based on this. It is expected that KRIBB and KRICT will strengthen their mutual cooperation in the next-generation drug development, infectious diseases, and carbon capture and utilization (CCU), where they have been collaboratively researching, leading innovation in the advanced bio field.
■The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 23rd that it held a "Research Field Briefing for R&D Innovation" at Kyungpook National University. This briefing is the second session following the meeting on "Innovation of the Basic Research Ecosystem" held on the 16th, focusing on in-depth discussions about "New Government R&D System Innovation." About 20 participants, including Ha Jung-woo, the Chief of AI Future Planning at the Presidential Office, Kim Hyung-jun, a principal researcher at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), emerging and mid-career researchers, student researchers, and research administrative staff from the Daegu and Gyeongbuk regions, held a free discussion. The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to actively review the feedback received during this briefing to allow researchers to focus on their work without administrative burdens, broadly recognizing the allowable range of research funding usage and significantly simplifying documentation and settlement processes in collaboration with field experts. The Ministry opened a public communication platform, "Everyone's R&D," on the 16th, allowing researchers and the general public to conveniently provide feedback. Any citizen with opinions related to R&D innovation can propose through the IRIS homepage (https://www.iris.go.kr/modu) without membership registration.
■The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 23rd that it held a kickoff meeting for the "Introduction of AI-Based Proactive Response System for Online Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents" project, which is being promoted through a digital-based social issue resolution project in collaboration with the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, at the Sejong Government Complex. This project aims to enhance public services closely related to citizens' lives and resolve social issues by proactively applying digital new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and cloud. Through this project, an AI that learns by itself will be established, enabling real-time monitoring 24/7. The system will use AI algorithms to detect suspicious information by analyzing the harmfulness of sexual exploitation keywords and images on online platforms and establish a review queue based on risk levels for systematic review and deletion support. The system will request the removal of detected posts from relevant platforms using reporting and deletion support APIs and manage processing records systematically. Additionally, the Women's Human Rights Institute of Korea, as a co-hosting organization, plans to play a critical role in designing consultation links and response systems for victims based on its expertise in victim protection.
■The Korea AeroSpace Administration announced on the 23rd that Administrator Yoon Young-bin visited the KTsat Geumsan Satellite Center in Geumsan, Chungcheongnam-do, to attend the ground-breaking ceremony for the Korean Positioning System (KPS) antenna station and met with related researchers. The KPS development project aims to create a regional satellite navigation system that provides ultra-precise position, navigation, and timing (PNT) information in areas near the Korean Peninsula. This information will serve as essential infrastructure for various sectors, including transportation, telecommunications, and finance, and will also be utilized in social safety fields such as emergency response and disaster prediction. Representatives from ministries, research and development institutions, and companies participating in the KPS development project attended the ground-breaking ceremony.
■The Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) announced on the 23rd that it held an award ceremony at the Oryong Hall for the "2nd GIST Human Rights-Friendly Laboratory Contest" aimed at fostering a healthy research culture and discovering and disseminating practices for human rights protection. This contest was designed to discover and share various practical cases aimed at creating a human rights-friendly culture, marked by mutual respect and communication among members within research laboratories, as well as fair operations. Two laboratories were ultimately selected based on applications received for about two weeks from April 4. The Human Rights Center, which supervised the contest, comprehensively evaluated whether there were efforts and systems in place to establish a human rights-friendly research laboratory culture, including a culture of mutual respect without bullying and verbal abuse and coercing participation against individual will, a communication culture where free expression of opinions and equitable work distribution occur, a collaboration culture that considers and embraces foreign students and newcomers, and a compliance culture aimed at transparent laboratory operations and improved treatment of members. Consequently, the "Intelligent Information Systems Laboratory" from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering was awarded the grand prize, and the "Semiconductor Light Emitting Device Laboratory" from the Department of Semiconductor Engineering received the award for excellence. GIST presented a placard stating "Human Rights-Friendly Laboratory" to the award-winning laboratories, along with 1 million won for the grand prize lab and 750,000 won for the excellence award lab.