KICT 한국건설기술연구원

On May 28, the KICT and Deltares, a Dutch research institute, held a joint seminar at the KICT headquarters in Ilsan.

Held under the banner of “stronger KICT-Deltares collaboration and increased cooperation in multinational strategic research,” the seminar saw Deltares share its latest research findings in integrated river monitoring, while the KICT explained its plans for the management of rivers in Korea, including the management of river vegetation. The international seminar was joined online by research teams from the University of Idaho (US) and Aalto University (Finland), who shared their own findings. The KICT and Deltares concluded the seminar with a field trip to the Geum River Basin, a government-designated preservation zone, before engaging in further exchanges to cement collaborative relations between the two institutes and between Korea and the Netherlands through MOU renewals and other measures.

Deltares is one of the world’s most accomplished water research institutes, specializing in a range of areas that includes water resources, rivers, ports, and water quality. It has a staff of around 800 of some 40 different nationalities, and on an annual budget of KRW 180 billion carries out research in Europe, North America, South America, Asia, and Africa. The KICT signed its first MOU with Deltares in May 2015, and the two institutes have since maintained a strategic R&D partnership. A personnel exchange took place in 2016, followed by another in 2020, and the Andong River Experiment Forum and a number of other international academic conferences were jointly hosted between 2015 and 2023, while joint international research took place between 2021 and 2023. Both institutes are participating in the European Union’s HYDRALAB project.