The Institute for Basic Science is a Korean government-funded research institute that conducts basic science research and relevant pure basic research. IBS was established in November 2011 by the Lee Myung-bak administration as a research institute, later be a core of the International Science and Business Belt upon relocation of their headquarters from a rented property to their own campus in January 2018 using land reclaimed from the Taejŏn Expo '93 in Expo Science Park. Comprising 30 research centers with 68 research groups across the nation and a headquarters in Daejeon, IBS has approximately 1,800 researchers and doctoral course students. Around 30% of the researchers are from countries outside of South Korea. The organization is under the Ministry of Science and ICT. In 2011, the Korean government announced an investment of more than 2 trillion KRW to build a heavy ion accelerator facility, named RAON, in northern Daejeon by 2021. The facility, if completed on time, is expected to be the world's first device using both the isotope separatoron line and in-flight methods. From December 2018, the IBS Center for Climate Physics, headed by Axel Timmermann, began to utilize a 1.43-petaflop Cray XC50supercomputer, named Aleph, for climate physics research.
Organizational Structure
IBS consists primarily of a headquarters and secondary units in the form of research centers. IBS plans to establish a total of 50 research centers, employing 3,000 people. IBS research centers are divided into several categories: HQ, campus, extramural, and pioneer research. HQ Centers' research groups are affiliated solely with IBS. Campus Centers are based in the nation's science and technology universities. Extramural Centers are based in universities other than science and technology universities. Pioneer Research Centers are headquarters-based centers headed not by a director, but by a group of up to five chief investigators. As of January 2020, there are 30 centers operating in various fields of science including 6 in chemistry, 6 in life science, 5 in interdisciplinary science, 10 in physics, 1 in Earth science, and 2 in mathematics. The centers are located at IBS HQ in Daejeon and relevant universities in Seoul, Suwon, Daegu, Ulsan, Pohang, Busan, Daejeon, and Gwangju. The annual budget for each center ranges from 2 to US$10 million. Once launched, centers run with no fixed time frame to conduct their research. There are two affiliated organizations: the National Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and the Rare Isotope Science Project.
IBS School, University of Science and Technology IBS School is a graduate program jointly founded by IBS and the University of Science and Technology in Korea. The school opened in September 2015 to foster young scientists in basic science by utilizing HQ Centers' facilities. IBS Young Scientist Fellowship IBS has been running this program since 2013 to provide opportunities for early career researchers to gain research experience by carrying out independent research within IBS centers.
