The Ministry of Science and ICT of South Korea (Minister LEE Jong-Ho) held a roundtable with Korean researchers from the Netherlands and Belgium, on Wednesday 18 October 2023, hosted by Korea-EU Research Centre (Director General CHO Woo-Hyun).
The roundtable was attended by Science Minister LEE and Director General of the Ministry’s international cooperation bureau, Korean Ambassador RYU Jeong-Hyun and the Science Counsellor, the director general of the KERC and Korean scientist representatives from Belgium and the Netherlands. Researchers were from Jassen Pharmaceuticals, IMEC, ASML, Goodix Tech, SCK-CEN, TU Delft, etc.
During the discussion, they exchanged research and development landscape of respective countries such as collaborative research mechanism and international cooperation aspect.
For example, researchers informed that international cooperation in research area in Europe is very active and systemically encouraged, mentioning that collaboration takes place at the laboratory level rather than PI level. In addition to that researchers pointed out the horizontal discussion systems as one of major difference from Korea.
In response to the researchers' input, the Ministry presented their related initiatives and upcoming new plans to the researchers. The Ministry said that they will review these inputs from Korean researchers and reflect them in their future policies.
Also, the roundtable explored ways to enhance research cooperation between Europe and Korea. Attendees welcomed the recent progress of Korea’s Horizon Europe association process and the Digital Partnership between Korea and the EU, which are expected to increase Korea-EU research collaboration.
