Nine Nobel laureates are among the 81 distinguished foreign researchers set to take up positions at South Korean universities in a government-backed plan to raise the quality of the nation’s universities, The Korea Times reported.

The scholars — including three winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Paul Crutzen, Roger D. Kornberg, and Kurt Wüthrich — will begin temporary posts at 30 Korean universities next year, South Korea’s Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology announced. The 81 were chosen from about 1,000 applicants to the World Class Universities program, a five-year, $800-million bid to drive Korean institutions up in international rankings. The newspaper noted that the country had just two universities among the world’s top 200 last year, according to a British list produced by Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds.

Some commentators have called South Korea’s program a waste of money, saying most of the foreign researchers will return home without making a significant contribution to the country’s higher-education system. The government hopes that the program will rev up cutting-edge research and that some of the researchers will put down roots in the country, helping it achieve its goal of turning South Korea into the East Asian capital of higher education. —David McNeill