NICO signed a scientific cooperation agreement with the Center for Memory and Glioscience of the Korean Institute for Basic Science – IBS in early June.
This agreement demonstrates the strong international reach of the NICO and the University of Turin’s scientific activity, as well as the quality of the collaborations developed with leading partners in key global research ecosystems.
The agreement with the IBS Center for Memory and Glioscience plays a strategic role in the development of NICO’s research, enabling collaboration with top-level researchers and sharing advanced technology platforms. The shared scientific interests, partly complementary skills, and highly competitive nature of the researchers involved will allow for increased scientific productivity and the level of research, as well as collaboration on funding applications (South Korea has recently joined the Horizon Europe program).
Prof. Alessandro Vercelli, direttore scientifico del NICO
Some of these seeds are already bearing fruit: on September 10, the two institutes organized a satellite symposium of the K-Brain 2026, the Annual Meeting of the Korean Society for Brain and Neural Sciences, in Daejeon, where NICO researchers and doctoral students will participate in person alongside their Korean collaborators.
The agreement provides for a series of actions to foster collaboration in the following areas:
Joint research projects and initiatives of common interest.
Exchange of researchers, PhD students, and technical staff.
Joint use of laboratories, infrastructures, and other facilities.
Joint participation in meetings, symposia, and conferences.
Sharing of information, scientific publications, and tools
The Parties aim to promote collaboration among their scientists and research
groups in scientific and technological fields of common interest, including:
Glioscience and Astrocyte research
Memory encoding and Engram cells
Neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer’s, ALS)
Neural circuits and Brain development
Advanced brain imaging and technologies
IBS - INSTITUTE FOR BASIC RESEARCH
IBS is one of South Korea’s leading research centres. The South Korean government decided to invest heavily in an institute dedicated to basic research after realising that the exceptional wave of industrial applications of research in the automotive, telecommunications and microelectronics sectors had reached a point of saturation, meaning that new impetus would be essential to make further progress.
Opened in 2011, within a few years IBS has become an international benchmark in the field of basic research in areas such as Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Life Sciences and Earth Sciences.
The partnership between the University of Turin and the Institute for Basic Science (IBS)
The agreement recently signed between the Cavalieri Ottolenghi Neuroscience Institute (NICO) and the Centre for Memory and Neuroscience at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) forms part of a broader partnership between the University of Torino and the Institute for Basic Science.
The two institutions have, in fact, drawn up an innovative agreement under which IBS, which is unable by statute to award academic degrees, contributes a supplement to the scholarship for eight PhD positions within the University of Torino’s PhD School.
During the initial phase, it was agreed that the doctoral programmes involved, with two grants each, would be: Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics and Neuroscience. The first year of collaboration yielded excellent results: over 100 applications for 8 positions, 8 high-level PhD candidates selected, 6 of Italian nationality, one of French nationality and one of Korean nationality.
IBS researchers visit NICO and the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Turin.
In February 2026, a delegation of IBS researchers, including Director Dr. Justin Lee, visited the Rita Levi Di Montalcini Department of Neuroscience and NICO, marking another important step in strengthening the collaboration between the University of Turin and the Korean university system.
The purpose of the visit – which included a series of seminars by Korean guests at NICO – was to promote understanding among a large group of researchers from both NICO and the Department, and to define research topics for the two PhD positions within the IBS-UniTO Avogadro Program.
The success of this initiative was made possible thanks to the commitment of Professors Alessandro Vercelli and Marina Boido, as well as the active participation of researchers from UniTO and NICO in the series of seminars and meetings.
Towards the International Network of Neuroscience Research
The collaboration between the UniTO and IBS working groups has fostered further collaboration among researchers. Among these, in addition to participation in several project proposals, is the proposal to join a network, promoted by NICO, of research centres and university departments dedicated to neuroscience research.
The agreement between NICO and the Centre for Memory and Glioscience is the first step towards joining the Network. In addition to the Centre for Memory and Glioscience, the Cajal Institute in Madrid and Idor in Rio de Janeiro are currently partners of NICO and will be joining the network. NICO is currently in talks with other organisations in the UK and Japan.