Institute for Basic Science (IBS)
기초과학연구원

South Korea

IBS was established in 2011 aiming at advancing the frontiers of knowledge and fostering leading scientists of tomorrow by pursuing excellence in basic science research. Since then, IBS has been providing infrastructure for long-term, large-scale, and group research as well as supporting autonomous research activities of researchers, focusing on exploration of creative knowledge. In 2018, IBS had moved to its new building in Daejeon, South Korea. Watch the tour video of our headquarters and some of our research centers.

As a basic science research institute representing Korea, IBS is running 30 Centers in physics, chemistry, mathematics, life sciences, and interdisciplinary areas as of January 2020 and planning to increase the number to 50. IBS has announced 2020 call for applications for IBS Research Center Directors and Chief Investigators. Applications will be accepted until February 29, 2020. For more information, please visit www.ibs.re.kr/eng/sub04_02_04.do.

The institute’s main philosophy is to select a world renowned scientist as a Center’s director and create an environment where the director can concentrate on his/her own creative research. That is because IBS believes that creativity can be maximized when excellent researchers focus on conducting challenging research in an autonomous research environment.

IBS has been generating research outcomes that attract world-wide attention and was named one of Nature Index Rising Stars 2016. Despite a short history, the institute is standing shoulder to shoulder with international basic science research institutes. With the 2018 completion of its new headquarters designated as an urban science park, IBS will maximize merits of group and interdisciplinary research as well as bring IBS’ research capabilities together. It will more actively recruit young researchers at home and abroad with its expansion, heralding an even brighter future.

Since 2016, IBS has been operating Young Scientists Fellowship (YSF) under the slogan ‘Initiate your own research at IBS. In order to intensify its support to grow the next-generation leaders of scientific investigators, IBS has been launching a new research unit called Pioneer Research Centers (PRC), a subset of the existing IBS HQ Centers since early 2019. PRCs consist of up to five Chief Investigators (CIs) each. A CI leads their own research group to pioneer new fields and focus on challenging research in the basic sciences. CIs are required to have scientific excellence equivalent to that of a principle investigator at a globally renowned research institute or to have great potential to reach the aforementioned level in the near future. IBS will continue its efforts to become a research hub where young scientists can devote themselves to their science with full autonomy and independence.

1 December 2018 - 30 November 2019

Region: Global
Subject/journal group: All

The table to the right includes counts of all research outputs for Institute for Basic Science (IBS) published between 1 December 2018 - 30 November 2019 which are tracked by the Nature Index.

Hover over the donut graph to view the FC output for each subject. Below, the same research outputs are grouped by subject. Click on the subject to drill-down into a list of articles organized by journal, and then by title.

Note: Articles may be assigned to more than one subject area.

Count	Share
319	84.37

Outputs by subject (Share)

Subject	Count	Share
Earth & Environmental Sciences	18	3.06
Life Sciences	47	12.58
Chemistry	131	35.47
Physical Sciences	176	44.92

Highlight of the month

Nanolayer between polymer-containing liquid and pipe visualized for first time

An ultrathin layer that causes polymer-containing liquids to flow faster than expected in pipes has been directly observed for the first time.

Almost a century ago, scientists discovered that liquids containing small amounts of large-molecule polymers flow through pipes faster than expected. This phenomenon has been explained by the formation of a very thin layer between the pipe and the liquid. But this layer, which has a lower polymer concentration than the rest of the liquid, is so thin that no-one had been able to image it until now.

Now, three researchers from the Institute for Basic Science in Korea have used a super-resolution microscopy technique to image this layer in microchannels. From their measurements, they could determine the layer’s composition and thickness — typically a few hundred nanometres.

This advance will help scientists better understand how fluids behave under turbulent conditions and in nanofluidic devices.

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