The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials and the Korea Institute of Materials Science have joined hands to secure differentiated technological competitiveness in the field of national strategic technologies.

The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM, President Park Sang-jin) and the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS, President Lee Jeong-hwan), both under the Ministry of Science and ICT, signed a research cooperation agreement and held a cooperation exchange meeting on February 8 at the KIMM headquarters in Daejeon. The event was attended by approximately 50 researchers from both institutions, including Kim Bok-chul, Chairman of the National Research Council for Science and Technology, KIMM President Park Sang-jin, and KIMS President Lee Jeong-hwan.

On November 24, 2022, the two institutions held their first collaborative exchange meeting at the Changwon Institute of Materials Science to discover convergence cooperation research themes.

Subsequently, in order to facilitate practical cooperation and convergence research between the two institutions, research fields in secondary batteries, hydrogen, and nuclear power were identified, and a matching fund totaling 1.2 billion won was established with each institution contributing 600 million won, and joint research was launched.

Kim Bok-cheol, Chairman of the National Science and Technology Research Council, who attended the event, said, “This holds great significance as an exemplary case of government-funded research institutes voluntarily converging and actively cooperating to secure national strategic technologies,” adding, “I hope that such efforts will spread to other research institutions.”