– Intensive Support for Career Development in Corporations, Research Institutions, and Universities
[Herald DB]
[Herald Economy = Gu Bon-hyuk] The Ministry of Science and ICT and four science and technology institutes announced they have completed the appointment of 400 top-level postdoctoral researchers, both domestic and international, focusing on eight “InnoCORE” research teams.
The InnoCORE initiative supports collective and interdisciplinary research among postdoctoral researchers in the AI fusion field (AI+S&T) and top domestic research teams. It aims to address the global competition in securing scientific and technological talent centered around AI by focusing on preventing domestic brain drain, promoting reshoring, and attracting foreign talents.
Specifically, given the vulnerable domestic postdoctoral environment, where obtaining a PhD domestically and completing postdoctoral research at overseas institutions is a major route of brain drain, 116 newly PhD-qualified individuals from domestic universities were recruited to prevent such losses.
Additionally, 56 excellent domestic talents who were engaged as postdoctoral researchers at or completed their PhD programs at prestigious overseas institutions like MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, Cambridge, and companies like Meta and UC Berkeley were aided in returning to Korea.
To address the population cliff crisis due to declining school-age population and to strengthen the global network of domestic universities and research institutions, 103 talented individuals of foreign nationality were recruited to create a creative research environment based on diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Recognizing postdoctoral researchers as a stepping stone for career development in industries, research, and academia, personalized support will be provided to help them settle in domestic companies, research institutions, and universities.
Faculty from the science and technology institutes and researchers from industry-academia-research collaborations will be appointed as joint advisors (multi-mentors), and personnel exchanges will be expanded as concurrent positions or secondments to relevant institutions. Particularly, industrial joint research focused on technology validation and demonstration based on corporate demand will be conducted in partnership with companies like Naver, LG AI Research Institute, Samsung Electronics, Upstage, Rebellion, Furiosa, and POSCO.
Postdoctoral researchers interested in entrepreneurship will be given opportunities to participate in projects with high potential for commercialization and will receive full-cycle entrepreneurial growth support (accelerating) such as investment connections, space for startups, entrepreneurship education, and consulting for technology and management advice, fostering technology startups based on excellent research outcomes.
[Koo Hyuk-chae, 1st Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, is speaking at the 2nd meeting of the ‘Task Force for Preventing and Attracting Science and Technology Talent Outflow’. (Provided by the Ministry of Science and ICT)]
Next year, there are plans to expand the new research teams. Unlike this year’s focus on AI fusion, the support target will be expanded to all strategic technology areas. Through linkage with large-scale tasks from research institutions and the expansion of concurrent positions, the collaboration system between research institutions and universities will be further strengthened. This will be alongside expanding activities to attract overseas talent, not only from the U.S. but also from Europe, Singapore, Japan, and other regions.
Koo Hyuk-chae, the 1st Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “To overcome the crisis of net outflow of AI talent overseas and to get ahead in the global competition for securing scientific and technological talent, we have secured 400 top-level PhD personnel, including 159 overseas talents,” and added, “We will now closely support the journey of young researchers as they grow into a vanguard leading national development.”