Ministry of Science and ICT Launches "Korean Science" Initiative... Covering Cultural Heritage, Ancient Astronomy, and Smart Farms (Comprehensive)

Integrating Advanced Science and Technology into Korean History and Culture

Full Disclosure of the Research Process to the Public... "Discovering Our Science"

The Ministry of Science and ICT is set to officially launch the "Our Science (K-Science)" project, which integrates Korea's history, culture, natural environment, and cutting-edge science and technology. The plan aims to pioneer new fields of science and technology based on Korea's unique originality and create a national research and development (R&D) model whose outcomes can be directly experienced by the public. Each ministry put forth areas where science and technology could be applied, such as cultural heritage, smart farms, and ancient astronomy, expressing expectations for scientific achievements and the development of cultural content.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on the 28th that it held the "Our Science Policy Council" at EL Tower in Yangjae-dong, Seoul, with officials and experts from related ministries and organizations such as the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Cultural Heritage Administration, the Rural Development Administration, and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute in attendance. Participants are taking a commemorative photo. Provided by the Ministry of Science and ICT

On the 28th, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it held the "Our Science Policy Council" at EL Tower in Yangjae-dong, Seoul, with related ministries, agencies such as the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Cultural Heritage Administration, the Rural Development Administration, the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, and experts in attendance. The project aims to have Korea lead research and pioneer new fields by combining its unique assets—such as history, culture, natural environment, and social systems—with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, and semiconductors.

The project established its policy in February this year and identified candidate tasks on the 15th of this month. The plan is to secure a budget by the end of this year and, starting next year, implement the project by making the entire R&D process public to the public. In-gyu Park, Director General of the Science and Technology Innovation Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated at the council, "AI has been the biggest topic under the current administration, but we need to uncover our own science within the scientific and technological fields we have been researching. We intend to collect and reflect opinions on how to properly implement the Our Science project."

Pursuing the Development of High-Precision Cultural Heritage Detection Technology... "The Scope of Science and Technology Should Expand"

At the council, among a total of 21 proposed tasks, the candidate projects for 2027, selected through initial review and expert discussions, were unveiled. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism proposed developing "K-Museum Technology," which will convert approximately 2.53 million artifacts held by the National Museum of Korea into digital heritage. This includes high-precision exploration technology for cultural heritage such as ancient tombs, AI-based automated storage environment control, the construction of semantic data for cultural heritage, and the development of AI agents for content creation. The Ministry of Science and ICT expects that this will go beyond simple digital preservation and expand into AI-based cultural content creation and intelligent museum services.

The Cultural Heritage Administration is pushing for the establishment of the "K-Genome Platform" to reconstruct the origins and migration history of Koreans. This project aims to scientifically reconstruct the formation of the Korean people and changes in disease patterns by integrating and analyzing ancient genomes obtained from human remains and the genome and disease information of modern Koreans. The Cultural Heritage Administration expects this project to track the origins, migrations, formation process, and long-term disease risk trajectories of the Korean people, and to build integrated AI inference systems using genomes, historical and cultural resources, and isotopes.

In-gyu Park, Director General of the Science and Technology Innovation Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, is speaking at the 'Our Science Policy Council' held on the 28th at EL Tower in Yangjae-dong, Seoul. Photo by Byung-sun Kong

The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute is promoting the "Ancient Astronomy Convergence Research" project, which will astrophysically analyze about 25,000 ancient astronomical records found in historical texts such as the Samguk Sagi and the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty. Records of explosions from the Goryeo and Joseon eras have already been introduced in international journals such as Nature and major astronomical publications. The research team plans to connect these records to modern astronomical research, such as long-period variable stars and solar activity, and also digitally restore ancient astronomical artifacts like the Cheonsang Yeolcha Bunyajido and the automated clocks from King Sejong's era. The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute intends to restore original records and astronomical instruments related to ancient astronomy and pursue UNESCO registration for these records.

The Rural Development Administration proposed a project to build the "Small and Medium-Sized K-Smart Farm" model suitable for small- and medium-scale farms. The plan is to link the world's first greenhouse technology, recorded in the "Sangayorok," an agricultural book from the 1450s during King Sejong's reign, to modern smart farms and create a Korean-style agricultural model. Unlike the capital-intensive Dutch smart farm model, this project focuses on developing small- and medium-sized models tailored to Korea's agricultural structure and local environments.

The council also discussed the direction of the project. Director General Park stated, "The outcomes of the Our Science project are concentrated on cultural achievements. For example, aspirin, which won the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, originated from records in the ancient Egyptian medical document, the papyrus. It would be good to have a scientific outcome as well." Park Chansu, Deputy Director of the Science and Technology Policy Institute, emphasized, "While science and technology cannot solve everything, expanding the scope is necessary in today's era. Although the results of this project will be created in Korea, if they can be established on a global level, the project will be truly meaningful."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.