Philosophy Professor Jongkwan Lee, selected for the ‘2021 Best Scholars Support Program’

Professor Jongkwan Lee of the Department of Philosophy at SKKU was selected for the ‘2021 Best Scholars Support Program’ in the field of humanities and society, announced by the Ministry of Education and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) on September 23 (Thur).

The ‘Best Scholars Support Program’ organized by the NRF is an in-depth research support project to produce world-class scholars in the field of humanities and society through long-term in-depth research and promotion of writing activities. It is the largest program to support individual researchers in the field of humanities and society, with a total of 250 million KRW fund over five years.

Professor Lee, a philosopher who has pioneered digital civilization transformation from a humanities perspective since the late 1990s, currently serves as the director of the Institute of Hybrid Culture and the head professor of Humanistic Future studies. In addition, he proposes a methodology for future humanities and applies it to art, architecture, science, digital culture, artificial intelligence, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution to produce remarkable results at home and abroad.

Specifically, he published excellent books and academic journals such as “Posthuman is coming”, an academic award-winning work of the Korean Publishing Culture Awards and Lotte Publishing Culture Awards. He also presented his research results such as “Future of Work and its Temporality in the Age of 4th industrial Revolution” (2017; Korea) and “Transhuman, Artificial and Human Life: A Phenomenological Critic of Transhumanism” (2018; Germany) through international conference.

Through his research performances, he was invited to serve as an advisor to various stat-run institutions; an advisor to the Future Housing Research Committee under the Ministry of Construction & Transportation, a planning and management member of the Korea Information Society Development Institute, an advisor of the Future Forum at Science & Technology Policy Institute, and a member of the Convergence Academic Development Committee, Ministry of Education and Science.

Moreover, Prof. Lee successfully carried out, “Megatrend Study” with researchers at the Institute of Hybrid Culture and the Korea Information Society Development Institute, and he planned a research, “Technical Revolution and Publicity of Human Work”, and produced excellent results as a research director from 2017 to 2018.

Through this ‘Best Scholars Support Program’, Prof. Lee aims to present a future vision of humanitarian and respect for nature that overcomes this through in-depth cross-sectional studies that encompass the crisis of civilization that has already occurred several times since the early 21^st century.

Additionally, in order to substantially drive the progress of history toward a better future, realize respect for nature and humanitarian economic vision, he will conduct a pioneering research of this era to uncover the possibility of dematerialized economic activities through metaverse virtualization and lead policy development that links to smart circular economy.