KAIST held a ceremony to dedicate the “Lotte X KAIST R&D Center” at KAIST head office in Daejeon on Sept. 11 in the presence of Lotte Group Chmn. Shin Dong-bin, other group officials, major KAIST office holders, professors of the Department of Chemical & Molecular Engineering and other related officials.
The center is expected to serve as a hub for industry-academia cooperation to address sustainability issues facing humanity, such as climate change and carbon neutrality.
The facility was built at a cost of 10 billion won, donated by Lotte Group and KAIST Department of Chemical & Molecular Engineering’s own fund.
The center is designed to serve as an R&D hub for industry-academia cooperation encompassing the whole R&D process, ranging from basic and original research testing for future technology to producing of prototypes and technology commercialization.
KAIST said the center takes on significance since it presents a new model for “super industry-academia cooperation” beyond the conventional one connecting universities’ research capabilities and companies’ industrialization and commercialization experiences in one space.
Both sides plan to build a cooperative regime for university and company sides to not just exchange research results, but jointly explore and research future issues, as well as connect outcomes with industrialization and commercialization.
The center is a facility with one basement floor and six ground floors, measuring about 4,298 sq. meters in floor space.
Open-concept research space and cooperative space are placed organically so that researchers can conduct exchanges and joint research freely beyond their research sectors and boundaries.
The center involves research in three sectors with the goal of realizing a sustainable future society.
The first comes the bio-sustainability field. The center researches on sustainable bio technologies that replace the conventional fossil fuels, such as bio fuels and bio plastic, based on systems metabolic engineering.
The second research sector involves carbon-neutral energy, materials and processes.
The center pursues development of core technologies in the energy, materials and processes essential for realizing carbon neutrality society like green hydrogen, renewable energy and battery.
The third research sector involves advanced food and health care.
The center pursues research on advanced technologies in future food and healthcare sectors and new technology solutions for a healthy and sustainable future society.
The center also plans to explore new materials and technologies and increase R&D speed and efficiency by utilizing artificial intelligence in the whole R&D process. It is designed to expand KAIST’s “AI native campus strategies” to the research field.
The center has set up “collaborative research space” for Lotte and KAIST researchers to jointly utilize, and “Shin Dong-bin Hall” in which communications and exchanges are made among researchers.
KAIST plans to expand an open-concept industry-academia cooperation ecosystem encompassing Lotte and KAIST’s jointly exploring of issues, R&D, verification and commercialization.
Cooperation between KAIST and Lotte dates back more than 10 years. In 2012, KAIST began conducting master’s and doctoral degree programs for Lotte employees.
The two sides also established the Lotte Chemical-KAIST Carbon Neutral Research Center in 2022 to secure key technologies and nurture professional talents.
The Lotte X KAIST R&D Center is owned to both sides’ expanding R&D infrastructure, ranging from joint research to future technology development and commercialization, based on cooperation and reliability they have accumulated in the past 10-odd years.
“Today’s opening ceremony is not just completion of a building but a new beginning of cooperation,” said Bae.
“We will integrate KAIST’s research capabilities and Lotte’s industrial and business capabilities to connect ideas and technologies in laboratories to actual values in the workplace and build new growth engines for Korea, as well as sustainable solutions for the future.”
Lotte Group Chmn. Shin, congratulating the dedication of the R&D center, said, “The center is expected to settle into an industry-academy cooperation hub that can create greater opportunities beyond the boundaries of the school and the company, and Lotte will walk with a strong partner so that faculty members and students cab research and challenge freely without fear of failure.”
KAIST President Bae Choong-sik said, “I deeply appreciate Lotte’s support and cooperation for joint manpower development and research with KAIST for a long period, and today’s dedication ceremony is not just completion of a building but a new beginning of cooperation.”
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