NRF Basic Research Laboratory
Provides laboratories in Korea with support for long-term basic research teams and sustained discovery pathways.
The NRF Basic Research Laboratory (BRL / 기초연구실) program is a group-focused basic research grant awarded by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) under MSIT authority. It funds small university research groups of three to four principal investigators conducting basic science and engineering research. The FY2026 first-tranche call was announced on November 13, 2025 under MSIT Notice No. 2025-1005, with detailed guidelines published November 20, 2025. The call appears as item number 43 on the NRF English Call for Proposals index.
BRL awards reach approximately 500 million KRW per year over a three-year period, with no phased continuation structure — the three-year award is not broken into renewals requiring interim performance gates, unlike the nine-year Leader Grants. Two tracks exist: Advanced (for established research groups deepening existing lines of inquiry) and Pioneer (for novel research directions). The minimum team size is three PIs and the maximum is four. Eligibility is limited to university-affiliated research groups; for-profit organizations, nonprofits, and solo PI applications are excluded. Government and public research institute researchers may participate alongside university faculty. All application materials are in Korean; no English application route exists.
The NRF evaluation process runs through four stages: preliminary qualification review by NRF staff, expert panel assessment of creativity and challenge-orientation, PM Consultative Group field allocation, and final MSIT Program Committee confirmation. Specific per-track eligibility criteria, scoring weights, and submission deadlines are in the Korean-language HWP/PDF attachments released November 20, 2025, which were not extracted at ingest. Deadlines fall in the Q1–Q2 2026 window. Research groups targeting BRL should retrieve the full guidelines from ernd.nrf.re.kr, confirm the three- to four-PI composition requirement, and select the Advanced or Pioneer track based on whether their proposed work extends existing NRF-funded research or launches an entirely new research direction.
Funds small Korean university research groups of three to four PIs conducting basic science and engineering research under Advanced or Pioneer tracks, at approximately 500 million KRW per year for three years.
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