South Korea will increase investment into basic research this year to over 2 trillion won (US$1.5 billion) as part of efforts to help the country's researchers strengthen their global competitiveness, the science ministry said Wednesday. The government will spend a total of 2.1 trillion won on basic research projects in 2024, up 67.8 billion won from last year, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT. The ministry said it has newly created a creative research category to give financial support to pure theory and concept research projects and encourage global research and development projects with foreign partners. The ceiling of funds for a research project has also been doubled on-year to 300 million won this year. Source: Yonhap News Agency