[Opening ceremony held on March 18; leading efforts to strengthen Korea’s biohealth competitiveness
through convergent research in biomedical integrated circuits (BIC) chip]
POSTECH held the opening ceremony for K-BIGHEART (Korea Biomedical Institute for Global Health Research and Technology) on March 18 at the Changeup Ground on campus, officially marking the institute’s launch.
The event was attended by Hyuk Chae Koo, First Vice Minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT; Hae-sook Lee, Deputy Minister of the Office of Higher and Lifelong Education Policy at the Ministry of Education; Geum-hee Yang, Deputy Governor for Economic Affairs of Gyeongsangbuk-do; Won-hwa Hong, Chairman of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF); Seong Keun Kim, President of POSTECH; along with other key university leaders and researchers.
K-BIGHEART was established as part of the National Research Laboratory (NRL) 2.0 Program, jointly promoted by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Education. The program selects university-based research institutes capable of producing world-class outcomes and fosters them as large-scale, interdisciplinary research hubs. Each institute may receive up to KRW 10 billion per year, for a total of up to KRW 100 billion over 10 years.
K-BIGHEART will pursue interdisciplinary research spanning medicine, engineering, life sciences, physical sciences, and AI data science to develop core technologies for future healthcare. This includes precision medicine and digital healthcare enabled by next-generation BIC biosensors and medical devices.
It also plans to expand large-scale national R&D projects and global collaborations and to build an open research platform that fosters cooperation among industry, academia, research institutes, and hospitals—thereby strengthening technology commercialization and industrial linkages.
In a vision presentation titled “Vision for K-BIGHEART,” Institute Director Professor Luke P. Lee outlined mid- to long-term strategies, stating, “We are eager to collaboratively shape the future of healthcare through the development of a data-driven precision biomedical engineering platform and the enhancement of international collaboration networks. “
With the launch of K-BIGHEART, POSTECH aims to further enhance its research competitiveness in global healthcare, nurture national strategic technologies, and create future growth industries.
In his welcoming remarks, President Seong Keun Kim said, “Today marks a monumental milestone that will reshape the paradigm of science and technology in Korea,” adding, “We will create a ‘safe playground’ where researchers can fail freely and rise again—leveraging POSTECH’s convergence research capabilities to alleviate human suffering and deliver world-class outcomes that advance global healthcare.”