ASCoF

ASCoF (Association des Scientifiques Coréens en France, an association according to the French civil law of 1901 defining nonprofit organizations) was founded at Paris in 1976 by South Korean scientists including Dr Sen Sik MIN (professor and former dean of the University of Nantes), Dr Young Chul LEE (on leave from the Korean Oceanographic Research Institute), and others, in response to the South Korean government’s wishes to promote scientific and technological cooperations between Korea and developed countries through the Korean scientists and engineers residing in those countries. It was the fourth of the kind after KSEA (USA in 1971), VeKNI (West Germany in 1973) and KSEAUK (UK in 1974). Dr Lee was the first president and served for a year, then Dr Min has served as the second president and continued for a couple of more years. Several regional branches were also founded, the Toulouse branch having counted the largest number of members in the beginning. A large majority of its members consisted of beneficiaries of the French government scholarships, in particular, of the priority program that began in 1976 and continued for several years.