Cultural Heritage Administration Awards 56 Million Won in Special Commendation Payments

Fourteen Awarded for Achievements in Disaster Response, Excavation Innovation, and More
Prize Money Distributed According to Individual Contributions

The Cultural Heritage Administration held the "Special Public Official Award Ceremony for the First Half of the Year" on July 15 in the main conference room at its Daejeon headquarters, encouraging employees who made outstanding contributions in disaster response, large-scale excavation project innovation, preservation and utilization, and public service improvement.

Group photo of the awardees at the special public official award ceremony for the first half of the year.

This award program was established in line with the government’s performance-based personnel policy. A total of 56 million won—the largest amount to date—was paid as prize money.

The Cultural Heritage Administration accepted nominations for the awards from May 7 to June 8, both via departmental and individual applications and through a public recommendation portal. After a review process, fourteen entries were selected as final winners: two for Excellence and twelve for Merit.

The award amounts were set at 10 million won for the Excellence prize and 3 million won for the Merit prize. The prize is granted based on the individual contribution ratio of each participant, rather than by team or department.

For the Excellence awards, "Paradigm Transformation of Disaster Management for Cultural Heritage in Large-Scale Climate Crisis Disasters" by Jang-In Park, Assistant Director of the Safety and Disaster Prevention Division, was selected. In response to the wildfire in Yeongnam last March and the nationwide heavy rain in July last year, Park established the "New Disaster Management Activity Strategy for Cultural Heritage," changing the management system from a recovery-focused model to one that is preemptive and proactive.

"Accelerated Excavation Work Through Nationwide Expansion of the Joint On-Site Support Team," by Yongho Jeon, Senior Investigator at the Excavation and Research Division, was also chosen as an Excellence awardee. By expanding the "Joint Support Team" nationwide at excavation sites for national projects such as metropolitan housing development and semiconductor cluster construction, the investigation period for buried heritage was shortened and administrative procedures were streamlined.

Min Heo, Administrator of the Cultural Heritage Administration, stated, "This ceremony was organized to recognize, at the organizational level, the dedication of our employees who served the public in the field, and to widely share their achievements." He added, "We will continue to discover and reward outstanding accomplishments and further expand the awards in the future."

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