South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT said on Tuesday it selected 8 universities as new participants in its science and engineering research living allowance support programme, which backs stable research lives for science and engineering graduate students. The universities are Kumoh National Institute of Technology, Pukyong National University, Dankook University, Incheon National University, Jeonbuk National University, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Korea Aerospace University and Hongik University.

With the latest selections, participating universities increase to 43 from 35. The number of students guaranteed a monthly base amount rises to 52,000 from 47,000. All 10 national flagship universities will participate, and the programme now includes specialised universities in fields such as engineering and aviation, expanding support to graduate students across a range of majors.

The programme's key feature is to guarantee monthly payments above a base amount — 800,000 won for master's programmes and 1.1 million won for doctoral programmes — by linking government support to student funding paid through government R&D projects and other channels. As an effect of the programme, participating universities' monthly average student support payments rose to 1.54 million won from 1.4 million won for master's programmes and to 2.23 million won from 1.99 million won for doctoral programmes, lifting overall payment levels by about 10 percent from a year earlier.

The ministry will provide on-site support from March, including tailored consulting and monitoring of early execution, to help new participating universities settle the system. It also plans to continue expanding participating universities through an additional call for applications in the second half of the year.