South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on Thursday it finalised a 2026 implementation plan for nano and materials research and development worth 275.4 billion won and will push ahead with projects in earnest.

The plan covers the ongoing Nano and Materials Technology Development programme and three new projects launching in 2026: Future Materials Discovery Support+, Advanced Materials Core Technology Growth Support and Training for Advanced Talent in Data-Converged New Materials. It will provide 7.05 billion won for the three new projects.

The Nano and Materials Technology Development programme will continue to support advanced materials technology development, future materials technology development, Materials Global Young Connect, nano future materials core technology development and the building of the R&D foundation for nano and materials.

This year it will focus support by dividing targets into 100 advanced materials aimed for development within 5 years and 100 future materials aimed for development within 10 years so it can respond pre-emptively to global supply chain issues. It will also continue to support creative and challenging research to secure nano-materials technologies that will contribute to creating new industries and advancing core industries.

The Future Materials Discovery Support+ project will support the development of new materials that realise new properties and functions not seen in existing materials, based on researchers' creative ideas and new research methodologies.

Reflecting recent technology and social demands and changes in mega trends in materials research, it will support tasks centred on three priority areas: unexplored new-property materials, human augmentation materials that overcome physical limits, and environmentally friendly sustainable materials.

The project is a follow-on programme launched after the end of the Future Materials Discovery Support project. It will start anew this year to upgrade the strengths of the previous programme and expand materials research methodologies by combining them with recently developed digital technologies such as AI.

The new Advanced Materials Core Technology Growth Support project aims to advance technologies so that core materials technologies based on advanced technologies do not fade away and can spread to national core industries. It will support follow-up research, aimed at technology transfer, by selecting outstanding results with high commercialisation potential from completed projects.

The Data-Converged New Materials Advanced Talent Training project will newly begin training data-driven master's and doctoral-level talent who have both specialised knowledge in materials and capabilities to use AI and data, to secure competitiveness in future technologies in the materials field.

The ministry plans to actively support core technology development in the nano and materials fields in line with the finalised implementation plan. It plans to provide specific details related to this year's new project announcements through the Korea Research Foundation website at the end of this month.