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Meeting Point South Korea – The FZ Jülich (FZJ), a member of Helmholtz Association, also followed the call by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and so the staff packed their bags with plenty of ideas and flew to Asia as part of the research marketing pilot project in South Korea.

Joint research lab

Two of Jülich's institutes, namely the Institute of Bio- and Nanosystems (IBN-2) and the Institute of Energy Research (IEF), immediately set about intensifying the transnational research partnership. Working together with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), IBN-2 and the two institutes managed to set up a joint research lab and were, additionally, able to bring further renowned partners on board – including, not least, the Seoul National University (SNU) and the Daejeon University KAIST. A student programme was agreed with the SNU, while KAIST and IBN-2 paved the way for cooperation on nanoelectronics and biosensor technology.

Knowledge transfer and cooperation

The Institute of Energy Research (IEF) was similarly successful with its work, where interest focuses above all on analysing and optimising fuel cells. To this end, the German scientists intensified their contacts with the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and the SNU. Working together with KIST, they have already exchanged their insights and knowledge on fuel cells and the first prototypes have already been trialled. The scientists from Jülich also organised a workshop with the Korean Institute of Energy Research (KIER) and visited fuel-cell developers ProPower and Samsung SAIT. This served to lay the foundations for an agreement with ProPower signed at the end of 2007 on the exchange of know-how and cooperation on direct methanol-fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries. The IEF and its affiliated technology centre RIST are cooperating with POSCO, the steel industry's leading international company.

The activities by both institutes were complemented with measures taken by the Staff Unit on Corporate Development and International Relations (UA-I) at the FZJ. Jülich's strategy for Korea was additionally underpinned in 2009 with a visit by the Board of Directors.