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The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) will increase a percentage of its investment in basic research projects from 35.2 percent to 40 percent by 2017.

The MSIP announced Monday its plan to develop basic research between 2013 and 2017. The plan aims at facilitating creative and challenging basic research by building a quality-oriented project evaluation system.

Based on Korea’s third science technology roadmap and national projects, the MSIP plans to promote policies that facilitate basic research for five years. The target is to foster talents by expanding investment in basic research and improving the competitiveness of research results.

With the plan, MSIP will increase the number of papers that rank in the top one percent of those cited in the Science Citation Index (SCI). Korea ranked 15th in 2011 and aims to rank 10th by 2017. It will also aim to increase the number of Korean first authors of papers, which fall in the top 0.1 percent of those cited in the SCI, from 49 in 2011 to 100 in 2017.

The MSIP will place top priority on facilitating creative and challenging basic research to become a leader in the field of science. It will upgrade its young researcher support programs in the second half of this year and receive creative ideas from young and new researchers.

Science elementary schools, high schools and universities will also be supported to foster talent. The MSIP will also reinforce research and development cooperation with foreign research agencies, including a virtual laboratory program with the United States’ National Science Foundation and joint programs with Sweden.

The MSIP will build a world-class research environment in the Institute for Basic Science to have 50 research teams by 2017. It also plans to attract 300 global scientists and foster 3,000 global leaders.


Source Text

Source: Newsis (July 8, 2013)

** This article was translated from the Korean.