South Korea and the European Union (EU) have reached an understanding to cooperate in research and development in science and technology and to introduce key policies including core technologies to achieve carbon neutrality.
The discussion was held under the ambit of the seventh meeting of the EU-South Korea Joint Committee on Scientific and Technological (S&T) Cooperation that was held in Seoul on February 14.
The meeting was co-chaired by the directorate-general for research and innovation of the European Commission (EC), Jean-Eric Paquet, and South Korea’s vice minister of science and ICT (MSIT), Yong Hongtaek.
The two sides discussed five priority areas for cooperation, which include information and communications technology (ICT), health, biotechnology, climate change and emerging future technology, research hub, and human capital development.
In the meeting, the EU shared Europe’s strategy for the global approach to research and innovation (R&I), the fundamental values and principles for international cooperation, with ethics, gender and open science as examples, the digital partnership, mission innovation, the European One Health anti-microbial (OH AMR) partnership, the Joint Research Centre cooperation with Korean research institutes and human development actions.
The South Korean side introduced the Korea Bio Data Station (K-BDS), an integrated system to control biomaterials and data, and a best practice case during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Both sides agreed to continue close cooperation in climate change and emerging and future technology research especially on carbon neutrality and the need for cross-border cooperation.
With regards to human capital development, the EU offered cooperation on human capital development with Korea via the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) program.
In return, Korea pledged to foster researchers and data exchanges through the Korea-EU Research Center (KERC) located in Brussels.
