□ DGIST (President Kunwoo Lee) announced that it has been finally selected for one Science Research Center (SRC) project and three Basic Research Laboratory (BRL) projects under the 2026 Group Research Support Program administered by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea.
□ The National Research Foundation of Korea’s Group Research Support Program is a flagship national research program that provides concentrated support for teams of outstanding researchers to tackle complex scientific challenges that are difficult for individual researchers to solve alone. Among its programs, the Science Research Center (SRC) program fosters large-scale research hubs to strengthen the foundations of basic science, whereas the Basic Research Laboratory (BRL) program serves as a catalyst for enhancing universities’ basic research capabilities by identifying outstanding small-scale research groups dedicated to in-depth investigation of specific research topics.
□ The Plant Fruit Growth Research Center, led by Prof. June M. Kwak (joint research: Prof. Hye Ryun Woo, Prof. Min-Sik Kim, and Prof. Jong-Chan Lee of DGIST)[1], has been selected for the SRC program and will receive a total of KRW 12.6 billion in research funding over the next seven years. The research team plans to develop DEEP Fruit, a foundation model that integrates single-cell analysis and artificial intelligence (AI), and construct a three-dimensional cellular atlas to elucidate the key molecular mechanisms underlying fruit growth.
□ A total of three research teams were selected for the BRL program, with each project receiving KRW 1.5 billion in funding over three years to secure promising future technologies. In the Pioneering Research category, which supports creative and challenging research rarely undertaken in Korea, Prof. Jaehong Lee and Prof. Seong-Min Lee of the Department of Robotics and Mechatronics Engineering were selected. In the Advanced Research category, which supports in-depth follow-up research building on existing studies, Prof. Younghoon Kee of the Department of New Biology was selected.
□ First, Prof. Jaehong Lee’s research team (joint research: Prof. Byeongmoon Lee of DGIST, Prof. Gun-Hee Lee of UNIST, and Prof. Hoon Kim of Soonchunhyang University) will develop an “intelligent active protective wearable system” that rapidly predicts signs of falls in older adults and instantly stiffens the fabric (electronic textiles) of clothing to prevent injuries. The system is expected to bring about a paradigm shift in safety technologies for older adults by moving beyond conventional “post-accident notification” to “pre-accident prediction and proactive protection.”
□ Prof. Seong-Min Lee’s research team (in collaboration with DGIST Professors Giseop Kim, Kanghyun Nam, and Yoonseob Lim) is set to establish the fundamental principles of “universal mobility intelligence,” enabling humans and heterogeneous mobility systems (such as drones and autonomous vehicles) to autonomously perceive situations and collaborate in the physical world. This next-generation AI research, in which mobility systems autonomously form cooperative structures in response to human intervention and environmental shifts, is expected to provide a key foundation for the emerging era of aerial and ground mobility.
□ Prof. Younghoon Kee’s research team (joint research: Prof. Jin Hae Kim, Prof. Song-Yi Lee, and Prof. Felix Jonas of DGIST) will elucidate, at the molecular level, the assembly mechanism of “telomere condensates (condensates formed at chromosome ends),” a key mechanism that enables intractable cancer cells to survive through unlimited cell division. Through this research, the team aims to uncover the survival strategies of cancer cells and lay the foundation for new therapeutic strategies and diagnostic biomarkers for intractable cancers.
□ “The selection of multiple DGIST research teams for the SRC and BRL programs is a meaningful achievement that reflects the national recognition of DGIST’s outstanding capabilities in basic research and the excellence of its convergence synergies,” stated DGIST President Kunwoo Lee. “We will continue to provide our full support so that our researchers can establish themselves as world-class research leaders and create innovative science and technologies that transform the lives of humanity.”
[1] The SRC project consists of three research groups, seven participating institutions, and a joint research team of ten researchers. Only DGIST researchers are identified in the press release. (Participating institutions: DGIST, KAIST, Lehigh University, POSTECH, Sungkyunkwan University, Pusan National University, Sookmyung Women’s University).
