The BK21 FOUR (Fostering Outstanding Universities for Research) is a program funded by the Ministry of Education in Korea. Its vision is to foster world-class research-oriented universities in Korea. It aims to enhance research capabilities in key academic fields, fostering subsequent generations of graduate students, and reforming and strengthening graduate school system. This program selected excellent universities through the high competition in Korea. The selected universities will be supported from September 2020 up to August 2027.

After two and a half years from now (i.e., March 2023), this program will make an mid-term evaluation on the selected universities and decide whether to continue to support them based on the results. The major evaluation factors include the quality as well as the quantity of the papers.