South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT held a briefing on Tuesday on its 2026 science and technology research and development policy and key programmes.

The briefing, held at the student union building of Konkuk University, was aimed at informing researchers about the ministry's R&D policy and key projects for this year. About 300 people, including industry, academia and research institute researchers and officials from university-industry cooperation foundations, attended. The ministry also livestreamed the event on its YouTube channel.

Of the government's R&D budget of 35.5 trillion won this year, the ministry will invest about 6.4 trillion won in science and technology R&D. It said the budget for a major transformation and leap in national science and technology was significantly increased.

In a presentation titled "2026 science and technology R&D implementation direction", the ministry said it will focus investment in the largest-ever science and technology R&D budget on expanding basic research safety nets and fostering strategic technologies. It said it will restore 2,000 basic research projects this year to strengthen the research safety net and manage basic research programmes with a focus on the "beneficiary rate".

It also presented a strategy to secure core technologies to foster strategic technologies such as bio, quantum, semiconductors and future energy. It announced plans to develop AI models and build the foundation to accelerate science and technology innovation.

The ministry will also strengthen support for technology commercialisation. It plans to make strategic investments in technology scale-up, capacity-building support by technology transfer and commercialisation actors, and laboratory start-ups so research outcomes from public research institutions such as universities and government-funded research institutes can spread.

After the presentations, ministry department heads and each technology group head at the Korea Research Foundation answered questions from attendees and exchanged opinions on R&D policy and key programmes.

The ministry said it will focus investment on expanding basic research safety nets and fostering strategic technologies so science and technology talent can challenge world-class research without fearing failure.