MEST’s Investments Focus on Basic Nanotech

Korea has built a solid nanotech foundation

The following are excerpts of a written interview between NewsWorld and Park Hang-sik, director general of the Basic Research Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST).
Question: Will you tell our readers about the achievements of major investments MEST has made in the nanotechnology category?
Answer: Nanotechnology is considered to be the core of all leading technologies in the 21st century, which has an impact on every industry with a wide range of applications. As many as seven out of the 17 new growth engine sectors designated by the government are related to nanotech. They include application, new materials and nano-convergence fields.
The value of the global nanotech market surged from $13 billion in 2004 to $292 billion in 2009, and it is expected to see explosive growth to $26 trillion in 2014, according to a prediction by Lux Research.
Since 2002, when the act on boosting the development of nanotech was promulgated, the ministry established the first and second comprehensive nanotech development plans and played leading roles in basic and original tech research in the nanotech area.
In terms of quantitative performance, Korea saw the Science Citation Index (SCI) rising from eighth place with 368 papers in the nanotech area to fourth place with 2,499 papers in 2009, according to figures released by Thomson of the United States. The figures showed that China topped the SCI list with 8,287 papers in 2009, followed by the United States with 8,061 papers and Japan with 2,820 papers. The nation ranked fifth in the world with 13,170 papers, accounting for 5.9 percent of the world’s total, in terms of accumulative paper publication figures compiled since 1997.
Korea saw the number of nanotech-related patents issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rising from sixth place with 81 cases in 2001 to third place with 461 cases in 2005, according to a database released by USPATFULL as of February 2010.
The nation has built a solid infrastructure for the development of the nanotech industry. The number of nanotech-related college departments rose from three in 2001 to 43 in 2006 to 59 in 2008 and to 66 in 2009 while undergraduates soared from 4,000 in 2005 to 7,651 in 2009. Six nano fabrication centers, which have been built across the nation, provided 85,388 accumulative services, while the number of related firms surged from 33 in 2001 to 290 in 2009.
Among the achievements Korea has made during the period between 2009 and 2010 were research on next-generation lithium-ion batteries using bio and nanotech convergence by Kang Ki-suk of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the commercialization of carbon nanotubes in highly effective transparent and conductive films by Han Chang-soo of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials. nw

(from left) Park Hang-sik, director general of the Basic Research Policy Bureau at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST),; A scene from Nano Korea 2009. Nano Korea 2010 with the IEEE Nano 2010 will take place at KINTEX Aug. 17-20