Increase support for science and engineering talent… Nurturing 100,000 green and energy talents

The Ministry of Education announced on the 26th that the 2nd Talent Fostering Strategy Meeting presided over by Prime Minister Han Deok-soo announced and discussed plans to support talents in science and engineering, plans to nurture eco-up talents, and mid- to long-term strategies for nurturing energy manpower.

The Talent Fostering Strategy Meeting was launched on February 1st to establish and manage a comprehensive and systematic talent fostering policy at the national level and to discuss key policy directions related to talent fostering through pan-governmental collaboration.

The government plans to create a new growth engine based on human resources, as the world’s major countries are competing fiercely to secure excellent research and technology talent.

At the meeting, discussions were held on ‘plans to support talent in the science and engineering field’ so that talented people in the field of science and engineering can boldly take on challenges based on new ideas and grow into outstanding talents.

In addition, it plans to prepare a plan to nurture talent in the E (environment and energy) field among the five key cutting-edge fields, and divide it into the eco-up and energy fields to promote in earnest.

On May 16, at the ‘2023 Environmental Industry Job Fair’ held at the aT Center in Seocho-gu, Seoul, job seekers are looking at the booths of participating companies.

◆ Support plan for human resources in science and engineering

The government grants authority and independence to project managers (responsible PMs) to conduct challenging and innovative research, and promotes new projects by continuously expanding the scale of support tasks for young researchers and improving project support methods.

By reorganizing the reward system based on intellectual property rights (IP), researchers are encouraged to create innovation and actively support talents with technology and research capabilities with high growth potential to grow through entrepreneurship.

In addition, postdoctoral researchers are stipulated as members of the university to guarantee the legal status of researchers and expand research and training opportunities for the continued growth of postdoctoral researchers.

National scholarship support for science and engineering graduate students, such as the introduction of the Presidential Science Scholarship for graduate schools, will also be expanded, and institutional improvements will be promoted so that graduate students can receive labor costs above a certain percentage when conducting research projects.

Within the RISE system, research support for researchers will also be expanded by reviewing support for outstanding science and engineering talents at universities and reviewing system improvements related to overhead costs applied when conducting national research tasks.

It also provides support for attracting talent and international cooperation. Government Invitational Scholarship Students (GKS) Promote the expansion of high-tech R&D tracks and continue to operate the employment support platform to actively attract ASEAN science and engineering students.

In addition, various educational institutions such as vocational high schools, polytechnics, (professional) universities, and (professional) graduate schools promote and support the introduction of the contract quota system and the expansion of designation of meister high schools to enable the fostering of demand-tailored talent through business linkage and convergence education.

While improving the system so that gifted schools and science high schools can operate according to the purpose of establishment, performance evaluation for gifted schools will be introduced, and incentives will be provided to schools with excellent evaluation results. Each city and provincial office of education designates science high schools as ‘autonomous schools’ to provide flexible curriculum organization and operation conditions for fostering scientific talents.

◆ Plans for cultivating eco-up talent

The government establishes and promotes a plan to nurture eco-up talent with the goal of fostering 80,000 additional green talents by 2027 in order to increase corporate productivity and competitiveness for eco-up, a core value for economic growth and future food.

First, the specialized graduate school (advanced) and specialized high school (beginner) plan to expand the fields according to corporate demand, and newly designate and operate leading and innovative convergence universities (intermediate) to stably produce customized talents for each level.

In particular, in order to nurture convergence talents that reflect the characteristics of the green industry, convergence and complex curricula between various disciplines (majors) are operated, and ‘Eco-up Innovation Convergence University’ is operated from this year.

It is also promoting the cultivation of local talent by strengthening the connection between demand by region and sector and green talent. By utilizing green convergence clusters, which are created as regional bases for fostering green industries, we will nurture field workers and reorganize specialized graduate schools in connection with regionally specialized green industry demand.

In addition, the local climate and environment improvement project required for the creation of a carbon-neutral city (10 goals by 2030), which is being promoted as a major project of the new growth 4.0 strategy, is also used as an opportunity to nurture local green talent and enter the market.

We will expand the training of international environmental experts for domestic talents to advance overseas, and also nurture ‘environmental, social, and transparent management (ESG)’ talents in earnest to respond to the acceleration of environmental regulations in the global market.

In addition, the Environmental Startup Competition is held to discover innovative start-up items or promising technologies, and to activate youth start-ups by operating start-up competency strengthening programs such as start-up fund support, start-up strategies, corporate accounting and tax, education, and one-on-one consultation matching with experts.

◆ Mid- to long-term strategy for nurturing energy manpower

The government establishes and promotes the ‘mid- to long-term strategy for nurturing energy manpower’ to respond to global energy paradigms such as carbon neutrality and energy security, and to nurture the new energy industry as a new growth engine.

With the goal of fostering 20,000 energy professionals by 2030, policy competencies will be focused on promoting three major strategies: ▲nurturing technical manpower tailored to corporate demand ▲nurturing local talent linked to the local energy industry ▲fostering core human resources with global competitiveness.

First of all, a roadmap for nurturing source technology, convergence, and industrial manpower for 118 tasks in 14 promising fields such as nuclear power, energy efficiency, and hydrogen will be prepared in July, and technology development and manpower training will be linked according to the annual roadmap.

In order to nurture convergence talent based on field demand, the graduate school of energy convergence will be expanded to 20 by 2025, and training programs in the fields of nuclear power, hydrogen, and efficiency will be opened to strengthen the professionalism of incumbents through collaboration with related organizations such as energy associations and organizations. .

An energy industry job information platform will also be established to provide real-time employment information and a job competency model (NCS)-based job linking program based on corporate demand will be activated.

Job Navigator (jobnavi.ketep.re.kr) provides information such as job competencies, majors, licenses, and related jobs for about 400 detailed jobs in seven major fields, including nuclear energy, energy efficiency, hydrogen, and power grids.

In addition, through cooperation between local universities and energy industry convergence complexes, field practice and start-up linked education will be strengthened, and the system for fostering local talent will be upgraded by establishing a platform for sharing energy technology.

It also promotes fostering core talent with global competitiveness. To this end, it will establish a talent development program specializing in exports, centering on nuclear power and hydrogen, and promote joint research with top global universities and research institutes.

The number of energy innovation research centers is also planned to be expanded to 14 by 2025 and 18 by 2027 to nurture global convergence talents in the new energy industry, such as next-generation nuclear power plants and hydrogen.