KUSCO was asked to assist the Korean Ministry of Education by providing overseas evaluation of the research projects that were newly solicited through the BK 21 PLUS (Brain Korea 21 Program for Leading Universities & Students) program. This program is a new version of previous World Class University program, which provides funding for collaborative research projects in Korean universities and is part of a broader effort by Korea to increase its investment in research and development, and expand international collaboration in science and technology.
The BK21 PLUS has 3 types and this overseas assessment only applies to type 1 “Global Human Resources” which is to designed to strengthen international competitiveness in convergence research areas of research oriented graduate schools.
This project required 4 different panel including 7 reviewers. The total of 28 reviewers were assigned to review 23 different proposals.
| Panel name | # of Reviewer | # of Proposal | |
| Panel 1 | Engineering, Material, Chemical Engineering | 7 | 5 |
| Panel 2 | Engineering and Others | 7 | 5 |
| Panel 3 | Bio Science | 7 | 5 |
| Panel 4 | Natural Science | 7 | 8 |
| Total | 28 | 23 |
For this project, KUSCO had established a pool of potential reviewers drawn from previous WCU participants, the National Science Foundation database, recommended prospective reviewers, and from university faculty lists.
This offline assessment was done on August 26th and 28th at the Sheraton Tysons Hotel.