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VKIST Opens On-Site Lab in Gangneung (2019.09.27)
- Date : 2019-10-04
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International Cooperation Team
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VKIST Opens On-Site Lab in Gangneung
On September 27, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and the Vietnam-Korea Institute of Science and Technology (VKIST) jointly conducted an opening ceremony for VKIST’s new on-site lab located within the KIST Gangneung Institute of Natural Products (KIST Gangneung). Bui The Duy, vice minister of the Ministry of Science & Technology of Vietnam (MOST); Vietnamese Ambassador Nguyen Vu Tu; Park Jaeshin, vice president of the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), and several local officials were in attendance.
The new lab will enable KIST to better support VKIST in becoming fully operational as quickly as possible, enhancing its research capacities through KIST’s R&D know-how, and utilizing KIST’s advanced research equipment through collaborations with KIST Gangneung.
By developing commercializable candidate materials for new medicines based on natural Vietnamese ingredients, then extracting these ingredients and helping analyze them, the lab is expected to serve as a hub for Korean-Vietnamese R&D in the field of natural products.
The VKIST Project began in 2012 when the Vietnamese government requested help in establishing a KIST-like research institute of their own. Throughout its history, KIST has played a key role in Korea’s economic development by greatly advancing the country’s S&T capabilities, which the Vietnamese government now recognizes as a primary means of achieving “advanced industrialized nation” status. In 2015, the VKIST Decree entered into force, and two years after that, former KIST President Kum Dong Wha was selected as the founding president of VKIST. The official launch ceremony was held later that same year, followed by a groundbreaking ceremony in the spring of 2018 attended by Korean President Moon Jae-in himself.
Based on applied technological research for enabling market entry over the short-term, VKIST aims to become a world-class S&T institute that can lead domestic industrialization efforts while speeding up national development. At a total cost of 70 million USD (half from Korea and half from Vietnam), it represents the largest ODA project in Korean history. Construction of the institute has already begun at Hanoi’s Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2020.