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COUNTRY REPORTS 2012: Republic of Korea

ERAWATCH COUNTRY

REPORT 2012:

The Republic of Korea

ERAWATCH Network

Youngjoo Ko


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Acknowledgements and further information:

This analytical country report is one of a series of annual ERAWATCH reports which cover the EU Member States, Countries Associated to the EU Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7) and, since 2011, selected third countries (ERAWATCH International).

ERAWATCH is a joint initiative of the European Commission's Directorate General for Research and Innovation and Joint Research Centre - Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS). The reports are produced, under contract, by the ERAWATCH Network.

The analytical framework and the structure of the reports have been developed by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies of the Joint Research Centre (JRC-IPTS) with contributions from Directorate General for Research and Innovation and the ERAWATCH Network.

The report is only published in electronic format and is available on the ERAWATCH website (http://erawatch.jrc.ec.europa.eu/). Comments on this report are welcome and should be addressed to [email protected].

The opinions expressed are those of the authors only and should not be considered as representative of the European Commission’s official position.


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Executive Summary

The Republic of Korea has a population of 50.0 million as of June 2012 and total land area of 98,447 square kilometres (approximately slightly less than half of the UK size), neighbouring China to the north and Japan to the south. In September 2011, Korea’s GDP per capita amounted to €18,408 (KRW 25.2m) and GDP per capita based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) reached €25,630 (KRW 35.9m) (IMF’s World Economic Data Base, 2011). Korea’s gross domestic expenditure on R&D was €33,883m (KRW 49.9t) in 2011, which accounted for 4.04% of GDP, and €38,815m in 2012, which accounted for 4.36%. The Government of the Republic of Korea operates under a Five-Year National Budget Implementation Plan, including an R&D budget. This is a responsibility of the Ministry of Strategy and Finance (MOSF). According to the latest plan over the period between 2008 and 2012, the commitment of government expenditure on R&D amounted to €7,188m (KRW 11.1t) in 2008 and €11,004m (KRW 16.0t) in 2012, an average 9.6% increase each year despite the cost cuts between 2008 and 2009. In 2012, Korea’s gross domestic expenditure on R&D was €38,815m based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP), which accounted for 4.36% of GDP and increased from $30,618m and 2.79% in 2005. The business sector R&D intensity (BERD as % of GDP) also increased to 2.98 in 2011 from 2.09 in 2005. GBAORD as % of GDP increased to 1.05 in 2011 from 0.64 in 2005. The Republic of Korea ranked 2nd in Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) and 3rd in GERD per GDP in the world in 2012. The private sector took up 74.7% of GERD in 2012. The Government of the Republic of Korea has been strengthening collaborative partnerships with EU countries through financial support for the EU Framework Programme (FP) activities and the EUREKA programme encouraging researchers to participate in them. The Korean government has also been increasing efforts to build partnering programmes such as the Korea-EU Science and Technology Cooperation Advancement Programme (KESTCAP, www.kestcap.org) which is a bilateral programme with twelve participating member states, and the INCO European-Korean Scientific Cooperation Network (KORANET) which was established in 2009 to intensify and strengthen the S&T cooperation between Korea and the European Research Area. Korea has strengths in many areas such as the government’s strong commitment to technology-based economic development, a national consensus on the importance of science, technology and innovation as drivers of future socioeconomic growth, high levels of GERD and BERD, a highly educated labour force, good and improving framework conditions for innovation, high degree of interest in science and technology, large firms that are internationally competitive, capability to produce talent, strong ICT infrastructure and the like (OECD, 2009a).

http://www.kestcap.org/


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The Lee Myung-bak administration (Feb.2008~Jan.2013) has strongly supported the development of research, education and innovation systems, encouraging private sector investment in R&D, nurturing talented HRST and accelerating knowledge production and circulation. In terms of the levels of GERD and the ratio of BERD/GERD, Korea has become one of the top countries in the world. Several leading companies such as Samsung, LG, and Hyundai Motors and the like have become renowned, competitive transnational corporations with operations across the globe and leading-edge technologies. The number of SCI papers and applied patents produced in research and innovation systems has rapidly increased to world class levels, up to 44,718 in 2011 from 27,420 in 2007 and 178,924 in 2011 from 56,732 in 2009 respectively. The concerted efforts and capability to come up with new plans between many ministries have been strengthened. More and more national R&D projects have taken the form of collaboration between industry, university and the GRIs. The number of TLOs (Technology Licensing Office), Technoparks, ScienceParks, regional clusters and spinoff companies from university and the GRIs has increased significantly. National R&D investments both by government and the business sector moved towards more public and welfare-oriented R&D to respond to social challenges, compared to five or ten years ago, when they were mainly focused on the development of industrial R&D. The tax incentives and procurement system explicitly take the needs of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) into consideration. Despite the high level of research mobilisation for national R&D and concerted efforts by many ministries involved for policy and programme planning, the efficiency and effectiveness of R&D investment and policy implementation have yet to be further improved. Inefficiencies are due to an excessive competitive tendering system to select projects, the weak role of a central body for coordination, and a low level of institutional funding for GRIs. Evaluations of R&D outcomes have also focused on the quantitative aspects such as the number of papers and patents, and the number of technology transfer from university and public research establishment to industry, complemented with few qualitative indicators such as good patents and SCI level papers. Even though SMEs in Korea are increasingly establishing their own in-house research institutes as a form of R&D units, the gap with the chaebol (Korean conglomerates) in terms of innovation is still high. This is because R&D investments of the chaebol are assigned to their own research institutes without participating SMEs in chaebol’s R&D programmes; R&D investment of SMEs is much lower; talented human resources in science and technology (HRST) are reluctant to engage in SMEs; and technology transfer from universities and the public sector research organisations to SMEs are unsatisfactory. In spite of the efforts made by the government on R&D globalisation, the total level of investment for internationalisation of S&T and global open innovation is still very low. The main investment has usually gone to small projects


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including still tiny participation in overseas R&D programmes and organisations. Korea has recently formulated a new national vision, a creative economy, by putting emphasis on the role of science and innovation in nurturing human creativity and building creative economic eco-system in order to boost economy and generate jobs. The table below indicates how knowledge triangle in Korea has recently changed and how to assess their strengths and weaknesses.

Knowledge Triangle

Recent policy changes

Assessment of strengths and weaknesses

Research policy

- Significant Increase in both public and private R&D investment

- Strengthen the role and functions of NSTC to coordinate government R&D budget in 2011. The NSTC was merged into the new department, MSIP in Feb 2013

- Focus more on basic research, a new creative ecosystem, and new growth engines, and job creations

- Increase in institutional funding for the GRIs (up to 70% in 2014)

- Establishment of Strategy Planning Committee for R&D in the MKE(now MOTIE since the February in 2013)

- Introduction of high quality evaluation system about national R&D programmes

- Focus on five strategic areas: creation of IT convergent new industry, development of future growth-engines, creation of clean and convenient environment, realising an area of healthy long life, and building securing society without any worries.

- Larger opportunities of competitive funding but still small projects with superficial collaboration

- Higher potential of coordination but unclear role of the MSIP in budget and management power

- More balanced R&D opportunities but still pressure for strong short-term outputs for industry

- More stable and strategic GRIs but lingering promise to get the target

- More coordination between internal divisions in MOTIE but in some extent overlapped role.

- Increasing efforts towards more quality-oriented evaluation in R&D, but still too many quantitative indicators (due to time shortage in evaluation) and insufficient research about the qualitative indicators

- Emphasising creative economy based on S&T, ICT but still unclear concept and implementation

Innovation policy

- Strengthening matching fund system for industry

- Selection of three sites as R&D and Business Special Zone

- Investment in more technology transfer infrastructure including TLOs and Technoparks

- Encouragement of university and the GRI spinoff companies

- Stimulating interactions within the regional knowledge triangle

- Enhancing tax incentives on private R&D investment

- Enhancing centralised management of IP strategy

- Increasing private investment and collaboration of knowledge triangle but still superficial partnerships

- Higher possibility of regional innovation but still too much investment in infrastructures and low investment in enhancing R&D capacity and human resources

- Increasing number of professional organisations for technology transfer but insufficient network with public research organisations

- Increasing spinoff companies from the GRIs and universities but still weak impact


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- More opportunities to meet and communicate each other but still early stage and weak trust

- Increasing number of private research institutes but still small scale and too much concentration on chaebol

Education policy

- Supporting more postgraduate students and foreign researchers

- Enhancing exchange in HRST with foreign countries

- Promoting STEAM(Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) for pupils and young students

-The Presidential Advisory Council on Education, Science and Technology (PACEST) was abolished and The Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology (PACST) was newly established in June 2013.

- Increasing number of postgraduate students but weak labour market

- Increasing foreign students and scientists but still small scale and weak impact

- Positive change in enhancing creativity of pupils and young students but still early stage and weak implementation

other policies

- Supporting more for SMEs including procurement policy

- Enlarging communications between research community and people

- Stimulating R&D in SMEs but some barriers remain due to competition rules

The table below indicates how Korean policies address the ERA-relevant objectives. Assessment of the national policies/measures in Korea

Objectives Main national policy

changes over the last year Assessment of strengths

and weaknesses

1 Labour market for researchers

- Enhancing Scholarships for postgraduate students and foreign researchers

- More internship programmes for graduates to work at research institutes

- Increasing postgraduate students but decreasing stable and regular jobs

- Increasing number of contract researchers

2 Research infrastructures

- More participation of regional government in development of research infrastructure and programmes

- Enlarging infrastructures - Establishment of the Institute

of Basic Science as a public sector research organisation

- Insufficient use by industry - weak integration of much of

the research infrastructure

3 Strengthening research institutions

- More public block funding and tax incentives

- Increasing number of private R&D institutes but still small


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4 Knowledge transfer

- Strengthening interactions and quality-oriented systems

- More investment in private-led joint projects

- Diffusion of S&T culture and more communication between science and society

- Increasing interactions and but less flexible labour market

- Increasing collaborative research but superficial

- Increasing quantitative performance but weak technology transfer

5 International R&D cooperation with EU member states

- More participation in EU R&D programmes and bi- and multilateral agreements

- Mutual learning to strengthen research capacity

- Increasing partnerships but still small scale and weak mutual impact

- Mutual complementarities but still early stage

6 International R&D cooperation with non-EU countries

- Common responding to global issues and social challenges with OECD countries

- Emphasis on globally open research and innovation system, searching co-projects with USA, Japan, China, and developing countries such Vietnam etc.

- Mutual learning science and innovation

- Positive contribution to sustainable development but still too much R&D for economic development

- inappropriate guidelines for international collaborative projects such as IP issues


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 10

2 PERFORMANCE OF THE NATIONAL RESEARCH AND INNOVATION SYSTEM AND ASSESSMENT OF RECENT POLICY CHANGES ................... 11

2.1 MAIN POLICY OBJECTIVES / PRIORITIES, SOCIAL AND GLOBAL CHALLENGES ............................................................................................ 11

2.2 STRUCTURE OF THE NATIONAL RESEARCH AND INNOVATION SYSTEM AND ITS GOVERNANCE ............................................................ 13

2.3 RESOURCE MOBILISATION ..................................................................... 16

2.3.1 Financial resource provision for research activities (national and regional mechanisms) ......................................................................... 16

2.3.2 Providing qualified human resources .................................................. 19

2.3.3 Evolution towards the national R&D&I targets..................................... 22

2.4 KNOWLEDGE DEMAND ............................................................................ 24

2.5 KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION .................................................................... 25

2.5.1 Quality and excellence of knowledge production ................................ 25

2.5.2 Policy aiming at improving the quality and excellence of knowledge production ........................................................................................... 26

2.6 KNOWLEDGE CIRCULATION .................................................................... 27

2.6.1 Knowledge circulation between the universities, PROs and business sectors ................................................................................. 27

2.7 OVERALL ASSESSMENT .......................................................................... 31

3 National policies for R&D&I ............................................................................... 33

3.1 LABOUR MARKET FOR RESEARCHERS ................................................. 33

3.1.1 Stocks of researchers ......................................................................... 33

3.1.2 Providing attractive employment and working conditions .................... 33

3.1.3 Open recruitment and portability of grants .......................................... 34

3.1.4 Enhancing the training, skills and experience of researchers ............. 35

3.2 RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES ............................................................ 35

3.3 STRENGTHENING RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS ...................................... 36

3.3.1 Quality of national higher education system ........................................ 36

3.3.2 Academic autonomy ............................................................................ 38

3.3.3 Academic funding ................................................................................ 38

3.4 KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER ......................................................................... 39

3.4.1 Intellectual property (IP) policies ......................................................... 39

3.4.2 Other policy measures aiming to promote public-private knowledge transfer ................................................................................................ 40

3.5 ASSESSMENT ............................................................................................ 42

4 International R&D&I Cooperation ...................................................................... 43

4.1 MAIN FEATURES OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION POLICY .......... 43

4.2 NATIONAL PARTICIPATION IN INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS AND SCHEMES ........................................................... 44

4.3 COOPERATION WITH THE EU ................................................................. 44

4.3.1 Participation in EU Framework Programmes ...................................... 44

4.3.2 Bi- and multilateral agreements with EU countries .............................. 47


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4.4 COOPERATION WITH NON EU COUNTRIES OR REGIONS ................... 47

4.4.1 Main countries ..................................................................................... 47

4.4.2 Main instruments ................................................................................. 48

4.5 OPENING UP OF NATIONAL R&D PROGRAMMES ................................. 49

4.6 RESEARCHER MOBILITY .......................................................................... 49

4.6.1 Mobility schemes for researchers from abroad ................................... 49

4.6.2 Mobility schemes for national researches ........................................... 50

5 CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................ 51

6 References ........................................................................................................ 53

7 List of Abbreviations .......................................................................................... 54


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1 INTRODUCTION The main objective of the ERAWATCH International Analytical Country Reports 2012 is to characterise and assess the evolution of the national policy mixes of the 21 countries with which the EU has a Science and Technology Agreement. The reports focus on initiatives comparable to the ERA blocks (labour market for researchers; research infrastructures; strengthening research institutions; knowledge transfer; international cooperation). They include an analysis of national R&D investment targets, the efficiency and effectiveness of national policies and investments in R&D, the articulation between research, education and innovation as well as implementation and governance issues. Particular emphasis is given to international research cooperation in each country.


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2 PERFORMANCE OF THE NATIONAL RESEARCH AND INNOVATION SYSTEM AND ASSESSMENT OF RECENT POLICY CHANGES

2.1 MAIN POLICY OBJECTIVES / PRIORITIES, SOCIAL AND GLOBAL CHALLENGES

In August 2008, the Lee government devised the Science and Technology Basic Plan: 577 Initiative over the period of 2008-2012, focused on the role of science, technology and innovation including the national investment objectives of devoting 5% of GDP to R&D by 2012. The Korean government also then launched the Basic Law for Law Carbon Green Growth and established the Presidential Committee on Green Growth (PCGG) to surmount the societal challenges the world faces such as climate change, energy consumption and also economic hardship, and to develop in a sustainable and responsible manner into one of the truly most advanced industrialised countries in the world (www.greengrowth.go.kr). The PCGG unveiled the National Strategy for Green Growth and Five-year Implementation Plan in July 2009. The Plan consists of three strategies which consist of 10 policy directions as follows:

1) Energy independence and adaptation to climate change

- Reduction of efficient greenhouse gas, escaping petroleum economy, an ability to adapt to climate change;

2) Creation of new growth engines

- Development of green technology, promoting green industry, advancement of industry structure, establishment of a base for green economy;

3) Improvement of quality of life and enlargement of national status in the world

- Green transportation, green evolution of daily life, a globally renowned green growth country

Prior to this Plan, the Korean government announced in January 2009 the New Growth Engine and Development Strategy in which seventeen new growth engines in three area were chosen as follows:

1) Green growth industry

- New and renewable energy, law carbon energy, water treatment, LED, green transportation system, high-tech green city;

2) High-tech convergence industry

- Media communication convergence, IT convergence system, robot, convergence between new materials and nano, bio-pharmaceutical and medical devices, high value food industry;

3) High value service industry

http://www.greengrowth.go.kr/


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- Global health care, global education service, green finance, contents and software, and travel industry

Out of total national R&D funded by government, the proportion of collaborative R&D between industry, public research organisations and universities has reached 74.9 % in 2011 from 53.9 % in 2008, in terms of funding size. The Korean government has tried to enhance the collaborative R&D in the areas of new growth engines and green technology. The number of co-patents for a researcher with other researchers in knowledge triangle was 0.000161, more than double, compared to average 0.000066 in OECD countries. The Korean governments has emphasised international cooperation for promoting cross-border flows of knowledge. The Lee Myung-bak administration had tried to establish a global open innovation system through promotion of networking and co-projects with global partners and pursuing strategic S&T globalisation with a view towards becoming a global S&T leader, as was stated in the S&T Basic Plan devised in 2008 and the Advancement Planning in S&T in 2010. For the strategic S&T globalisation, the government is taking the following measures: strategic expansion of global joint research; highlighting the characteristics of regional S&T cooperation; active participation in international organisations and programmes; expansion of inter-Korean S&T exchange cooperation; and securing S&T globalisation investment and improving its efficiency. However, since the new government was inaugurated with strong commitment to science and technology-based creative economy the policy focus or direction has also been changed accordingly. Given the global economic slowdown, boosting economy and creating jobs became the new national agenda, etc. In February 2013, the new five-year term Park Geun-hye’s government was inaugurated with strong commitment to science and technology-based creative economy. As a main department to play a key role for the creative economy, a new Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) were established at the end of February. The NSTC, the science and technology part of the former Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, and ICT (information and Communication technology) part of the former Ministry of Knowledge Economy were merged together into the new Ministry. The Park Geun-hye’s government also announced in February 2013 the “one hundred forty national agenda” as the next five-year commitments with twenty one strategies. Among them five strategies are related to science and technology. The five strategies which include issues related to science and technology as follows:

1) Establishment of an ecosystem for a creative economy

- Nurturing creative industry through science and technology

- Strengthening core industry through convergence of IT and SW

- Building an ecosystem for regional creative industry

- Activating social and corporative companies;

2) Strengthening growth potential for job creation


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- Nurturing health industry as future growth industry

- Supporting industry for a ripe old age;

3) Making SMEs as a key actor of a creative economy

- Building a growth ladder for SMEs

- Activating creation of venture and spin-offs companies;

4) Advancement of science and technology through creation and innovation

- Strengthening national science and technology capability

- Nurturing international science and technology belt as a new growth engine

- Advancement of production, protection, using system of IP;

5) Creation of sustainable environment

- Reduction of green-house gases

- Stable supply of energy and advancement of industrial structure

- Expanding new and renewable energy

- Realizing resource-circulating society.

Since February, all of government departments have been planning and implementing in details all of the agendas related to their role, respectively and/ or together.

2.2 STRUCTURE OF THE NATIONAL RESEARCH AND INNOVATION SYSTEM AND ITS GOVERNANCE

The Republic of Korea has a population of 50.0 million as of June 2012 and total land area of 98, 447 square kilometres (approximately slightly less than half of the UK size), neighbouring China to the north and Japan to the south. In September 2011, Korea’s GDP per capita amounted to €18,408 (KRW 25.2m) and GDP per capita based on purchasing-power-parity (PPP) reached €24,358 (IMF’s World Economic Data Base, 2011). There are whole gamut of players in the nation’s science and technology horizon, from basic scientists to members of the National Assembly, each playing an important role for the advancement of the nation’s science and technology eco-system. At the top administrative level, the main key actor, since February 2013, has been the newly established Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) which has the authority both to coordinate nearly 80% of governmental R&D budgets for all ministries and to plan and implement R&D programmes related to facilitating the creative economy. All of roles and functions of the National Science and Technology Commission (NSTC, www.nstc.go.kr), which was re-established at the end of March in 2011 as a top control power for the coordination and allocation of government R&D budget including prioritisation of R&D area, was merged into the MSIP. The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) was newly established in March 2013 to give advice to the MSIP, with similar deliberation function for national R&D budget and programmes. The Senior Secretary to the President for the

http://www.nstc.go.kr/


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National Future and Strategy, whose position was also newly created in February, will play a strategic role for the creative economy covering science and technology, ICT and climate change and environment. The Senior Secretary to the President for Green Growth within the Office of the President and the Presidential Committee on Green Growth (PCGG) has been moved to the Office of the Prime Minister since the new Park Geun-hye’s government. The Presidential Advisory Council on Education, Science and Technology (PACEST), an advisory body chaired by the President, was abolished and The Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology(PACST), which is chaired by the president with 23 members, was newly established in June 2013. The inter-agency process led by the Presidential Committee on Green Growth was an innovative approach to planning that seeks better coordination of policy-making among the ministries of finance, transport, energy, environment, land, and tourism, among others, so that investment decisions are guided by multi-sector processes. The strategy of green growth under the Lee Myung-Bak government and then the responsibility of the PCGG have significantly reduced after moving to the Prime Minister’s Office. At the political level, there are two interrelated standing committees within the National Assembly: the Standing Committee for Future Creative Science and Technology, Broadcasting and Communication and the Standing Committee for the Trade, Industry and Energy. The former committee attends to and determines issues mainly under the care of MSIP whilst the latter undertakes issues mainly under the care of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) which was also transformed in February in 2013 from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy. At the operational level, the key ministries include the Ministry of Strategy and Finance(MOSF), the MSIP and MOTIE: MOSF has the power to allocate the resources of the government R&D budget based on the decision of the MSIP; MSIP is responsible for the development of fundamental and mega science and for the management of the twenty-four Government-supported Research Institutes (GRIs) under the Korea Research Council of Fundamental Science and Technology (KRCF, www.krcf.re.kr), and the Korea Research Council for Industrial Science and Technology((ISTK, www.istk.re.kr), which was moved from the former Ministry of Knowledge Economy; and MOTIE is responsible for the development of industrial technology and trade and energy. The ISTK and the KRCF conduct institutional evaluation every year for the government-funded research institute (GRIs) under their supervision. The role and responsibility of MSIP have been reinforced and now it also involves in creating new industries, finding new growth engines, fostering cooperation between academia, public research institutes and industries as well. Some of its policies recently devised are also closed to industry. A new secretary of state for Future Strategy covering S&T, ICT and Climate Change & Environment was appointed. Some works of the ministries are overlapping. Other ministries with significant research responsibilities include: the Ministry of Health and Welfare; the Ministry of Environment; the Ministry of Defence; and the Ministry for Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. There is an independent council for nuclear safety under the Prime Minister's Office.

http://www.krcf.re.kr/

http://www.istk.re.kr/


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There are key supporting bodies for management, policy studies, planning, technology foresight, evaluation and coordination and so on. The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP, www.kistep.re.kr) supports the MSIP and NSTAC as a public institution specialised in national S&T planning, technology foresight, evaluation and coordination. An S&T advisory organisation based upon policy research is the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI, www.stepi.re.kr), under the supervision of the National Research Council for Economics, Humanities and Social Sciences (www.nrcs.re.kr) which belongs to the Prime Ministry’s Office. MOTIE relies on its own funding agencies mainly the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT, www.keit.re.kr), and the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning(KETEP, www.ketep.re.kr and Korea Institute for the Advanced Technology (KIAT, www.kiat.re.kr) for policy advice and management of R&D programmes. The MSIP relies on the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF, www.nrf.re.kr) for funding national R&D programmes mainly in the areas of fundamental science and convergent technology.

Figure 1: Overview of the Korea’s research system governance structure

ISTK: Korea Research Council for Industrial Science and Technology

KEIT: Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology

KETEP: Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning

KIAT: Korea Institute for the Advancement of Technology

KISTEP: Korea Institute of S&T, Evaluation and Planning

KRCF: Korea Research Council of Fundamental Science and Technology

MOTIE: Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy

MOSF: Ministry of Strategy and Finance

MSIP: Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning

NRF: National Research Foundation

NSTC: National Science and Technology Council

PACST: Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology

President

MSIP MOSF

MOTIE Other

Ministries

NRF/KRCF/ISTK KEIT/KETEP/KIAT

T

Agencies

KISTEP

Main Bodies of R&D performance

(Private Companies, PSROs/GRIs, Universities)

NSTC

PACST

http://www.kistep.re.kr/

http://www.stepi.re.kr/

http://www.nrcs.re.kr/

http://www.keit.re.kr/

http://www.kiat.re.kr/

http://www.nrf.re.kr/


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Even though research activities are concentrated in particular regions such as Seoul, R&BD Special Zones in Daedeok, Daegu and Gwangju with a supporting organisation called Daedeok Innopolis, the Republic of Korea is a highly unitary state. Despite increasing trends, the institutional role of regions in research governance is still not strong. The regional governments have responsibility for regional research and innovation policy through participation in central government’s programmes such as ‘the 3rd General Plan for Regional S&T Promotion’ over the period between 2008 and 2012 set out in 2007 and ‘5+2 Economic Development Plan’ established in 2008. Two Plans have been monitored and amended continuously by the NSTC (NSTC, 2007a, 2008, 2010a). At the regional level, the Technoparks in 16 regions have played an institutional role for implementation of the Government’s programmes. The MOTIE supervises the Technoparks and allocates the necessary budget. The supervision of Daedeok Innopolis was moved into the MSIP from MOTIE. The total amount of universities’ R&D expenses in 2011 amounted to approximately €2,558m (KRW 3.8t), which accounts for 7.5% of the nation’s total R&D expenditure. The Public Sector Research Organisations (PSROs) in Korea fall under three categories in terms of the roles and status of organisations: thirty-eight government-funded research institutes (GRIs), fifty-seven national/public research institutes (N/PRIs) and twenty not-for-profit research institutes. The PSROs accounted for 12.9% of the total government R&D investment as of 2011. Amongst them, the GRIs accounted for 73.3 % of the total government R&D budget, whilst N/PRIs accounted for 17.5% and not-for-profit research institutions accounted for 9.4% of the total government R&D investment. Amongst all of the PSROs, GRIs is the core performers as far as the nation’s major R&D activities are concerned. The new Park Geun-hye’s government has changed the structure and governance in national research and innovation systems, aiming at a higher level of private R&D investment, more centralised allocation of R&D budget and more efficient management of public sector research organisations.

2.3 RESOURCE MOBILISATION

2.3.1 Financial resource provision for research activities (national and regional mechanisms)

The Government of the Republic of Korea has the framework for multiannual budget plans to ensure predictability and long term impact including prioritisation of the public investments in education, research and innovation in the order of research, innovation and education. The MOSF plays crucial role to set out the Five-Year National Budget Implementation Plan every five year. According to the latest plan over the period between 2008 and 2012, the commitment of government expenditure on R&D was €7,188m (KRW 11.1t) in 2008, €8,459m (KRW 12.3t) in 2009, €9,147m (KRW 13.3t) in 2010, KRW €10,247m (14.9t) in 2011 and €11,004m (KRW 16.0t) in 2012 with average 13.1% increase each year. Such kind of a multi-annual strategy was preceded by an analysis of strengths and weaknesses at national and regional level with a predictable policy framework and has been successfully implemented so far as


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promised even though there were a period of economic crisis and depression in 2009 and early 2010 in Korea. Korea’s gross domestic expenditure on R&D was €33,883m (KRW 49.9t) in 2011, which accounted for 4.04% of GDP, and €38,815m in 2012, which accounted for 4.36%. The figure increased from €30,161m (KRW 43.8t) and 3.74% in 2010, €26,066m (KRW 37.9t) and 3.57% in 2009, €23,726m (KRW 34.4t) and 3.37% in 2008, €21,527m (KRW 31.3t) and 3.21% in 2007, €18,086m (KRW 27.3t) and 3.01% in 2006, and €16,612m (KRW 24.2t) and 2.79% in 2005. Business sector R&D intensity (BERD as % of GDP) also increased to 2.98 of GDP in 2011, 2.80 in 2010 from 2.09 in 2005. GBAORD as % of GDP increased to 1.05 in 2011 from 0.64 in 2005. The Republic of Korea ranked 2nd in Gross Expenditure on R&D (GERD) and 3rd in GERD per GDP in the world in 2011. Amongst the national GERD, the private sector accounted for 74.7% in 2012 compared to 75.0% in 2005. According to the five-year 3rd national S&T Basic Plan from 2013-2017 released in July 2013, the Park Geun-hye’s government selected below five areas as national strategic technological areas:

1) Creation of IT convergent new industry

-promoting SW and Internet –based new industry;

-strengthening ICT innovative capacity;

-advancement of contents in culture, tourism, etc.

2) Development of future growth-engines

-securing and using future energy and resources;

-occupying global market in health and medicine;

-making agricultural and stockbreeding industry higher valued, etc.

3) Creation of clean and convenient environment

-strengthening capacity to respond to climate change;

-developing and advancing pollution prevention and restoration, etc.

4) Realising an area of healthy long life

-attracting globally talented researchers, nurturing world class universities and enlarging collaborative research with foreign research organisations;

-overcome of intractable diseases;

-realising patients-customised medical service, etc.

5) Building securing society without any worries

-preventing natural disaster;

-building speedy system for societal disaster etc.

The MOSF allocates the total amount of money to ministries on the basis of R&D programmes and to public sector research organisations as a form of institutional funds after approval by the National Assembly in December. Looking at the government’s investment in 2012 in terms of R&D stages, Basic research accounted


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for 18.3%, applied research was 19.1%, and development research was 62.6%. Among research areas in 2012, IT was the highest investment accounting for 34.2%. Nano technology area was 12.8%, Environmental technology was 10.7%, and BT was 7.7%. R&D budgets of the ministries are distributed to each research group of GRIs, universities and industry on the basis of projects selected through competitive tendering. Each ministry has organisations that are responsible for planning, selecting and evaluating R&D projects and proliferating R&D outcomes. Such organisations include the NRF in MSIP and KEIT and KEMCO in MOTIE. Interestingly, two Research Councils, the ISTK and the KCRF in the MSIP, do not have funding power; they evaluate and manage GRIs. Recently, they are supporting some of joint research expenses in a limited capacity to GRIs through a funding programme for joint researches amongst GRIs as a form of competitive tendering. The NRF manages R&D projects, which are selected through all-year-around open competition and carried out by individual researchers or research groups in universities. The fields of research are not confined to science and technology; it runs the whole garner of areas including humanity and social sciences. The majority of those projects are planned by bottom-up approaches by researchers and professors. The R&D programmes of MSIP and MOTIE are mainly top-down and mission-oriented addressing specific technological areas and instruments and political issues. The majority of projects in the aforementioned ministries are carried out by collaborative research groups between industry, GRIs, and university in order to strengthen research networks and expedite technological innovation based on the notion of open innovation promoted by Henry Chesbrough since 2003. A quite different funding system, dubbed as the ‘Project-based System’ (PBS), was introduced in the later part of 1995 and applied to all GRIs from January 1996. The new arrangement included the abolition of ‘the Dual Funding System (DFS),’ which involved in grant-in-aid for salary and operation of institutes and projects funded by national R&D budget. This new scheme aimed to change the DFS into a single funding system with contractual projects which have full cost pricing including the cost of employees’ wages and operational costs. Since the introduction of the PBS, institutional funding for GRIs has decreased by less than 30%. That is why GRIs are bound to earn their budget for R&D and operation from any types of funding sources outside usually through open competition, which is conducive to a highly unstable and too much contractual system in GRIs. To remedy the situation for the least stable GRIs that lacked institutional funding, institutional core R&D projects were allocated by the MOSF to GRIs in the new PBS but no competition was ensued. One of the main issues has been the ratio of institutional core R&D projects versus total R&D contracts. As of 2008, the proportion of institutional funding averaged around 40%. This kind of institutional funding given by the MOSF has been increasing since 2008; the ratio went up to around 55% in 2012. The former government promised that it would increase the portion of institutional funding to over 70% by 2012 to strengthen GRIs’ mission-oriented functions. The promise has still not materialised. Recently, the MOSF is strengthening a graded allocation system for institutional funding; it reflects the outcomes of management performance of GRIs by evaluation when determining the


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size of institutional funding. National and public universities still maintain the dual funding system. There is a “matching fund system,” in which the government invests into R&D performing companies to promote the early-stage industrialisation of basic S&T products through the S&T related ministries. More specifically, over 50% of R&D projects under MSIP have been undertaken according to this scheme. The industrial part should put into over 50% of the total R&D funding. With a view towards helping increase the share of private R&D investment, the government is considering to proffer tax breaks and ease regulations on corporate in-house research institutes rather than direct subsidies. As a whole, competitive funding had been provided in majority until 2008. Institutional funding has since been increasing for more stable and mission-oriented research environment. Collaborative funding by one department had also been in place. A new trend of collaborative funding by multiple departments with increasingly local governments has recently been emphasised with a new style of collaborative R&D programmes. There have also been increasing societal challenges regarding science and technology such as: climate change, environmental degradation, energy exhaustion, an aging population, social cohesion and increasing demands for the quality of life and so on. The government priority has moved to respond those challenges and MEST introduced in 2003 technological impact assessment for critical issue areas such as nano-bio fusion technology, RFID, ubiquitous computing technology and nano materials and so on. The Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP, www.kistep.re.kr) manages the process for technology impact assessment. The ratio of technology assessment to total public R&D has been low and the results have not been reflected much on the government investment. In addition, in 2010, the largest proportion of government R&D investment that accounted for 52.3% was designed to the development of economy and industry. It is a higher rate compared to other European countries. As of October 2010, the total number of corporate R&D centers reached 21,162 as a form of research units within companies or independently affiliated research institutes, among which the number of R&D centers in SMEs reached 20,047. Out of the total private sector R&D investments, 97.1% went to the private sector, 1.8% to higher education, 0.6% to research institutes, and 0.5% to not-for-profit organisations.

2.3.2 Providing qualified human resources

Recognising the growing importance of S&T human resources, the Korean government came up in 2006 with the Basic Plan for Promoting S&T Human Resources over the period of 2006-2010. The core programmes for HRST development include:

1) Promoting the world-class research-oriented universities;

http://www.kistep.re.kr/


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2) Promoting research capabilities of S&T postgraduate students;

3) Promotion of efficient allocation and utilisation of HRST through tripartite (industry-academia-research) exchange programs;

4) Improvement of HRST’s welfare and research environments;

5) Promoting lifelong education system for HRST etc.

In 2008, the Lee Myung-bak administration established the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) through a merger between the Ministry of Education and Human Resources and the Ministry of Science and Technology in order to emphasise science and technology in education and human resource management. The goal of human resource policy of the Lee Myung-bak administration was manifested in 577 Initiatives to increase the superiority of and make full use of S&T human resources to lead an innovation-driven society. The Lee government also updated the Basic Plan of former Roh Moo-hyun administration through an annual monitoring and feedback scheme. The Lee government has nearly provided 0.7% of students above the 4th grade with outstanding talent with special science education. For the manufacturing enterprises of more than 500 employees, the Korean government plans to provide them with more human resources to ease shortages. The number of human resources lagged by 4.38% in 2005, compared to the number of human resources actually needed for manufacturing enterprises. The lag is expected to slightly decrease to 3.5% by 2012 through the strategies described below. The job rate in the S&T field is to be increased from 16.8% in 2006 up to 25% by 2012, which is around the OECD average. In order to reach its goal, two strategies constituted with seven specified thematic tasks were suggested. The first strategy was to foster high calibre science technology human resources. There are three thematic tasks under this first strategy. First, the government is making efforts to cultivate outstanding human resources in S&T through expansion of objects of special education for the gifted, and facilitation of securing and utilisation of competent human resources in overseas countries. Giving a detailed account, the government has a plan to expand science school for the gifted who are selected by special competition (1 in 2007 -> 4 by 2012), and providing special education for the gifted to 1% of students in each grade. The government is also exerting effort into cultivating world-class research universities that utilises outstanding human resources in overseas countries as contractual researchers and professors or permanent staff hired by those universities (124 billion Korean won in 2010, equivalent to about 0.9 billion euros). The second task is to reinforce basic science and technology education in general. Quality education curriculum for elementary, middle and high schools should be provided together with qualified teachers. As for university freshmen, text books and curriculum should be redesigned on the basis of students’ ability in science and mathematics. The third task is to cultivate quality S&T experts to promote future growth engines. The government is planning to strengthen its support for human resources in new technological fields, particularly in the service area. The second strategy was to make the most of S&T human resources provide futuristic vision. Four thematic tasks are suggested. First task aims to promote employment of


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S&T human resources and diversify career path. Exchange programmes between business and university in education and research are to be expanded, and each university is required to reform its education system to meet the demands and needs of its students. Second, the government is putting more focus on female S&T human resources. As part of such efforts, the government plans to combine Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) by the MEST and Women’s Academy for Technology Changer in the 21st Century (WATCH 21) by the MKE. The third task plans to build a life-long education program for S&T human resources according to their career and their ability. And the fourth task is to increase welfare to boost the morale of S&T human resources. In April 2011, MEST with other related 9 ministries announced ‘The Second Basic Plan for Nurturing Human Resources in Science, Engineering and Technology over the period of 2011-2015’ (MEST, 2011). The core programmes for HRST development include:

1) Strengthening understanding, interest and potential of elementary, middle and high school students regarding science and technology through modification of textbooks for promoting STEAM (science, technology, education, arts and mathematics) education and smart class and so on;

2) Promotion of world class research-oriented universities which have global research capability, through incentives for the selected universities in competitive tendering process;

3) More participation of researchers in GRIs in education using their qualified infrastructure and making more stable research environment for GRIs to attract talented HRST.

4) Strengthening counter capability for industrial demand for HRST and promoting world class research institutes in business enterprise sector;

5) Enhancing the use of potential HRST such as human resources in foreign countries, women and retired scientists and strengthening HRST policy infrastructure.

Compared to the Basic Plan over the period of 2006-2010 which was usually focused on the universities, the new Basic Plan for the next five years emphasises inter-linkage between science and technology and humanities, lifelong learning and support for HRST, more collaboration between the related ministries and more efforts for attracting GRIs and private research institutes to lure more students into the area of science, engineering and technology in the future. As of 2011, the total number of R&D personnel was 531,131 which consist of 361,374 researchers and 169,757 supporting staff, and 250,626 in industry, 95,750 in universities and 28,800 in public research institutes. The number of researchers increased up to 401,724 in 2012. The ratio of human resources who graduated from the field of science, engineering and technology among the total number of graduates is 36.89 % in 2011. (The National Technical Information Service, NTIS, http://sts.ntis.go.kr). Despite the government’s desperate endeavours to attract more students and nurture HRST, there has been no clear evidence that more students tend to go to the field of science, engineering and technology. For the last ten years, more and more students

http://sts.ntis.go.kr/


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preferred the medical, law and management fields to S&T. The GRIs has not been able to employ researchers with master and PhD degree due to the low level of institutional funding. Jobs for HRST have taken place in big companies. Despite increasing number of research institutes in SMEs, their job volume has been still not large.

2.3.3 Evolution towards the national R&D&I targets

According to the ‘Science and Technology Basic Plan: 577 Initiative’, which was produced in August 2008, the Korean government set up the national R&D investment objectives of devoting 5% of GDP to R&D by 2012. In order to achieve the goal, the Korean government has promoted private investments in R&D through adequate national research and innovation systems and various policy instruments as well as a highly increasing ratio of government expenditure on R&D each year. The ratio of government R&D expenditures has increased to 26.1% in 2011 from 23.0% in 2005 because the Korean government has increased its expenditure on R&D, on average 13.1% each year for the last five years. The various tax incentives to encourage more private investment in research and innovation were implemented. There is no evidence of decrease of R&D investment by business enterprise sector due to the economic crisis or depression. The R&D investment sum of the top three companies, Samsung Electronics, LG, and Hyundai Motor, in 2010 reached €8,665m (KRW 12.6t), accounted for 61.4% of the total R&D investments made by the top twenty-five companies. There is significant sectoral concentration of investment in electronic equipment, automobiles and components which take up receive larger portion of the investment; however, in the areas of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, not a single company was listed in the world’s top 1,000 companies in terms of R&D investment. The Korean policy mix aiming to stimulate greater private R&D investment includes a variety of instruments. A matching fund system for R&D performing firms has been strengthening since 2000s. More than 50% of R&D projects under the MSIP and 70% of MOTIE were based on this scheme. The industrial part should put matching funds of some proportion into those projects in order to participate as a major actor. R&D investment of private firms with R&D capability has additionally increased through those matching fund projects due to high possibility to reduce investment risks. The largest portion of those matching funds, however, has gone to big companies containing high R&D capability. The major part of research fund in GRIs comes from competitive tendering for national R&D programmes. This is why the majority of research projects of GRIs consist of collaborative projects with private companies, especially those who have innovative R&D ability. Such projects are evaluated twice every year over the period of the project. If any project is evaluated as a success, the firm conducting the successful project has to pay back 20~40 % of the project fund as a royalty. In line with the nation’s drive to enhance the corporate innovation capabilities a variety of technological-cum-financial products are in the making. Most notably, the government has endeavoured to induce private financial institutions to actively involve and turn their collateral-based loans into technological value-based ones. Many government departments including MOTIE and the SMBA have made efforts to


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set up direct financial support scheme and micro-credit loans, without any collateral or even technology evaluation, for both technology-based SMEs and individual-based entrepreneurial founders. With this financial scheme, it was expected to raise technology funding to €4.7b (KRW 7.1t) by 2012. Along with it, the government is set to tie prospective results from government-funded researches with technology funds, thus making easier technology transfer and raising money for their commercialisation. The S&T investment fund of the MSIP and the Technology Entrepreneurship Investment Fund of the MOTIE constitute some of these types of funding. The Korean government has also been providing diverse tax incentives to promote private sector’s R&D investment and innovation activities such as: deduction of income and corporate tax as much as a certain percentage (25% for SMEs and 3~6% for non-SMEs) of research and human development cost related to general R&D activity; deduction of income and corporate tax as much as a certain percentage (30% for SMEs and 20% for non-SMEs) of research and human development cost related to new growth engines and core technology development R&D activities; deduction of income or corporate tax as much as 10% of money invested in research and human development facilities; exemption of local tax on real estate owned by corporate in-house R&D institutes; deduction of income or corporate tax as much as 7% of technology acquiring cost until 2012; 50% cut of income tax of foreign experts until 2012; and no tax charge on researcher’s income acquired by research activity within 130 euro. Resulting from those policy instruments as mentioned above, the number of corporate in-house R&D centres has increased from 13,324 in 2006 to 24,291 in 2011. Among them, the number of in-house R&D centres in SMEs has also increased from 12,398 in 2006 to 24,243 in 2011. The Korean government also introduced public procurement policies in 2006 for innovation-oriented SMEs and has increased procurement of innovative goods and services based on new technology with various instruments such as obligatory procurement of some proportion by local governments and national companies, giving a priority for products with technology certification such as NEP (New Excellent Product), NET (New Excellent Technology), the GS (Good Software), and the EPC (Excellent Performance Certification) by governmental organisations, increasing procurement of green products, pre-commitment of procurement for SMEs participating in national R&D projects. MOTIE and the SMBA in charge of procurement policies have tried to regularly hold workshops and communication activities between local governments and technology-based SMEs at both national and regional level to promote public procurement. The policy turned to be effective; the proportion of public procurement of goods and services of innovation-oriented SMEs accounted for up to 77.6% and more than €0.96b (KRW 13.9t) in 2011. There have been some barriers to procure innovative products and services due to competitive bids system and national audit by the Board of Audit and Inspection which prefers to a competitive contract rather than a private contract.


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2.4 KNOWLEDGE DEMAND

It has been estimated that the knowledge demand has taken place in knowledge intensive areas that have emerged in energy, new growth engines and quality of life. Korean companies have also increased their investment in those areas, desperately searching for highly talented HRST and knowledge for their innovation in a sustainable way adapting societal challenges. R&D expenditure of the private sector has increased from €15,640m in 2007 to €25,023m in 2011 and €29,006 in 2012. The business sector R&D intensity (BERD as % of GDP) also increased to 3.25 in 2012 from 2.09 in 2005. The number of researchers in industry has also increased up to 250,626 in 2011 from 185,633 in 2007. The number of master and doctoral degree graduates in business sector was 85,718, increase of 20% from 68,207 in 2007. The business sector invested €15,918 in new products and new process in 2011, nearly two times investment than that in existing products and process. The investment in new products and process was €10,405 in 2007, 50% up. Those statistics imply that knowledge demand from business sector has clearly increased and influenced government policy to nurture HRST and knowledge production from public research institutes and universities. The MKE established the Strategy Planning Committee for R&D in Knowledge Economy in 2010 aiming at orchestration of inter-ministerial efforts to drive both knowledge demand and the knowledge production to meet knowledge demand from business sector. MEST had focused on the promoting talented HRST. Since February 2013, role of the promoting HRST has moved to the Ministry of Education. The role of the MSIP is not yet clear in this term. All of the ministries associated with plans have implemented them specifically. For example, twenty three government departments have unveiled together the implementation plan based on 577 Initiatives. According to this plan, the main activities are to achieve the target of 5% GDP and to concentrate its investment, in total €5.22b (KRW 7.6t), in technology development of seven areas such as core industry, new industry, knowledge based service industry, nation-led big science, societal and global issues, basic and convergence technology. In particular, the area of societal and global issues increased to 22%. Another target is to advance systems and infrastructures in seven areas such as nurturing global HRST, promoting basic and original research, supporting for technology innovation in SMEs, strategic internationalisation of science and technology, strengthening regional capability for technology innovation, advancement of S&T infrastructure, and diffusion of S&T culture (NSTC 577 Initiatives, 2012). Despite the concerted efforts to produce those Plans by many government departments, the implementation process has not been effective because of too many small projects scattered to internal divisions inside the Ministries and redundant review processes, which usually result from overheated competitive tendering system with a little differentiations between industry, university and the GRIs. That is why the new NSTC was established at the end of March 2011 as a control tower to coordinate every government investments in research and innovation and to drive knowledge demand. The role and function of the NSTC was moved into the MSIP in February 2013, abolishing the NSTC.


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2.5 KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION

2.5.1 Quality and excellence of knowledge production

In 2012, Korea’s total number of domestic patent applications was 188,915 and registered patent was 113,467. The number of domestically registered patents was also up to 84,061 from 56,732 in 2009. The number of Korea’s registered patent in the USA was 13,233 in 2012, ranked in 3th in the world. The patents productivity as a form of the number of patent applications per $1m is also very high, as twice as that of US in 2009. The patents productivity of private R&D is 4.2 (the number of patent applications per $1m) in 2009, higher than 1.2 from national R&D projects funded by government. Even though the patents productivity of universities has increased, that of private R&D including large companies such as Samsung, LG and GRIs has slightly decreased because of the quality control for strong and excellent patents which have strong progressivity and wide coverage right. The average level of excellent patents from national R&D projects is a little bit higher than that of private R&D. The ratio of excellence in patents from national R&D is, however, 4~6%, half of 7~12% of private R&D and one sixth of 28~32% of foreign patents (KIPO, 2011). The number of SCI level papers has increased to 44,718 in 2011 from 28,425 in 2006, more than 40% increases, ranking Korea 11th in the world with 3.55% global share. The ratio of SCI papers out of the total number of papers, 1,528,033, produced by Korea in 2010 is 2.61% which increased from 1.63% in 2001. The number of citation a paper over the period of 2006-2010 is 3.57, 30th in the world. The total number of citations is 13,277 and Korea is ranked 14th in the world (NRF, 2012). The number of researchers in 2010 nearly doubled to 345,912, which include 81,447 PhDs and 109,224 Masters, compared to 178,937 with 46,704 PhDs and 57,936 Masters in 2001 (NSTC, 2012). The number of researchers increased to 375,176 in 2011 and 401,724 in 2012. The ranking of technology infrastructure by IMD decreased to 14th in the world in 2011 from 6th in 2007. The number of items which ranks 1st in the world in terms of market share was 53 in 2007, decrease from 87 in 2000. As a whole, the growth of quantity in terms of the number of papers, patents applications and researchers is significant, but more is expected in terms of quality and increase of patent utilisation. According to the National Large Facilities Roadmap produced in December 2012 by then the NSTC, the Korean government invested €282m in 2012 in the National Large Facilities, more than doubled from €120m in 2007 and is planning to put more than €600m into the NRF which are already being built for the next three years(‘13~15). The NLFs mainly consist of 13 facilities such as: HANARO Research Nuclear Reactor, National High Magnetic Field Center, 10MW Wind Turbine Components Test Center, National Molecular Imaging Center, Large Space Infrared Telescope, Fusion Reactor Technology Facility, Low Frequency Broadcast Station For Stand Time, Multipurpose Low Energy Synchrotron Facility, Square Kilometer Array Giant Radio Telescope, High Capacity 3D Integrated Marine physical Exploration Vessel, Large Deep Ocean Basin, Strong Pulsed Neutron Source, Underground High Energy Physics Research Facility. The Korean government expects to support for the development of big science, creation of new industries and the strengthening international collaboration.


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2.5.2 Policy aiming at improving the quality and excellence of knowledge production

The Korean government has managed the performance of national R&D through three levels of review and evaluation: projects evaluation conducted by all researchers in every sector, organisational evaluation about the performance in public research institutes, and programmes evaluation designed by many departments. According to the document titled "The Plan for 2013 National R&D Performance Evaluation" produced in December 2012 by the NSTC, the Korean government has tried to reform the evaluation scheme towards more effective evaluation, reflecting R&D characteristics, easing evaluation burden, and purpose-oriented evaluation in order to improve the quality and excellence of knowledge production. This is based on international criteria and the Law for Performance Evaluation and Management in National R&D and the Plan for the management and utilisation of R&D performance. Such kinds of reforming efforts led by the MSIP and supported by KISTEP are still going on as of end of May 2013. In the level of project evaluation, MOTIE (former MKE) relies on the Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology (KEIT, www.keit.re.kr) and the Korea Energy Management Corporation (KEMCO, www.kemco.or.kr) for the performance management of R&D projects. The MSIP relies on the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF, www.nrf.re.kr) for funding and performance management of national R&D projects, mainly in the areas of fundamental science and university research including humanities and social sciences. Those organisations openly propose various R&D programmes, get proposals from researchers, select appropriate researchers for projects, review the performance of the projects in the middle of the project management, evaluate the final performance at the end of one year period regardless of the multiannual projects and report the final results to their Ministry and the MSIP. Those organisations are also trying to modify their existing evaluation routines into more quality-oriented evaluation tools. The organisational performance in GRIs is evaluated by the umbrella Councils, the ISTK and KRCF, annual evaluation for their managerial performance and every three year evaluation for their research performance. The results of evaluation are reflected to researchers’ incentives, the next year budget and possibility of next term of their president. The KISTEP conducts evaluation on the performance and effectiveness of every project at programmes level and evaluates, with meta-evaluation method, the results of organisational evaluation of GRIs on behalf of the MSIP. The results of those evaluations reflect next year R&D budget. The Korean government has also tried to operate various policy instruments for the performance management such as technology foresight and road-mapping, extending patent and market analysis in the process of planning and conducting of projects and programmes, and introducing further evaluation process to assess any impacts of the projects completed 3-5 years ago.

http://www.keit.re.kr/

http://www.kemco.or.kr/



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Such types of performance management through both evaluations and policy instruments has been effective in terms of enhancing the number of SCI papers and patents, but not satisfactory to achieve world class qualified papers and patents. That is why the MOSF has introduced and the NSTC has continued to strengthen the quality system for the evaluation of performance in basic and applied R&D since 2010 and extends nearly to all of the R&D programmes, including those for promotion of HRST, international collaboration and service R&D. This covers 78% of the R&D programmes, which should be evaluated by the Law and guidelines. The MOSF also emphasised that the performance results will be more significantly reflected to the government budget. KIPO also introduced more strategic ways in 2011 to improve the quality of patents with four strategies and eleven relevant tasks as follows:

1) Strengthening production of excellent patents

- establishing blueprint for patent strategy, strengthening patent trends analysis in planning stage, spreading new methodology patent-oriented technology development strategy;

2) Strengthening performance management in patent

- updating performance evaluation system, enhancing efficiency of patent collection system, establishing real time patent monitoring system;

3) Promoting utilisation of research performance

- searching for good patents for commercialisation and strengthening consulting for it, activation of patent commercialisation networks, strengthening the capability for patent management in GRIs and universities;

4) Enlarging infrastructure such as professional personnel and organisations for good patents

Even though the Korean government has increased funding for international R&D collaborations, there are still few evaluation indicators for strengthening international R&D performance. The national funding has not allocated through international evaluation procedures. The MSIP does know about this kind of problems and try to change evaluation methods and indicators.

2.6 KNOWLEDGE CIRCULATION

2.6.1 Knowledge circulation between the universities, PROs and business sectors

Out of total national R&D projects funded by government, the proportion of collaborative R&D projects between industry, public research organisations and universities has reached up to 73.6 % in 2010 from 53.9 % in 2008. The Korean government has tried to enhance the collaborative R&D in the areas of new growth engines and green technology as above-mentioned in 2.3. The number of co-patents for a researcher with other researchers in knowledge triangle was 0.000161; more than the double compared to average 0.000066 in OECD countries.


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MEST introduced a new programme to nurture talented human resources needed for regional industry in each large economic region in 2009 and allocated €66.0m to 20 universities, stimulating strong interactions within the regional knowledge triangle of education, research and innovation. MOTIE and the MSIP have managed together the programme for promotion of collaboration-oriented university, which was a first stage between 2004 and 2008 and now second stage programme since 2009. Two ministries invested €139.9m over the period of the first stage and more than €54.4m in 2009 and 2010. The universities selected for this programme have been forced to reform evaluation criteria for their professors to encourage collaboration, to recruit their professors more from industry, to establish special departments and subjects for collaboration with regional industry, to operate internship programmes and collaborative committees with industry and so on. The MSIP has started to establish a special division for industry-university collaboration for every university since 2003 based the Law for promoting industry-university collaboration and industrial education. The role of the division is managing projects and performance, technology transfer and commercialisation, operation of training programmes based on the agreements with industry, and nurturing a spin-off enterprise and so on. The number of universities which established the collaborative division reached 358 out of 412 universities (MEST, 2009). The division has average 5 staff. The rate of transferred technologies out of newly developed technologies in annual basis in the universities is up to 16.6% in 2010 from 15.3% in 2007. The knowledge circulation within the knowledge triangle is taken place from private companies’ funding for collaborative research with GRIs and university. The level of investment has been very low and even decreased since 2000 when the investment was 3.88% because Korea’s big companies have tended to invest in internally closed form of R&D rather than open innovation. The Korean government has also forced to conduct collaborative R&D in GRIs under the so called project base system (PBS) with low level of institutional funding less than 40% since 1997. As of early 2012, more than 75% of R&D projects in GRIS were collaborative research with industry and university. Since 2008 when the GRIs moved into the MKE, from the OSTI which was merged into MEST in 2008, the new role of GRIs to support, in part, for technological problems in SMEs has been emphasised. Such trends have been amplified science the move of GRIs into new MSIP in February 2013. The balance between the development of original technology and simple support for solving technological problems in SMEs has not been established yet. Those policy instruments have resulted in superficially strong collaboration with industry and universities and focus of the majority of R&D in GRIs on that of developmental stage rather than basic science and technology. The proportion of technology transfer produced by the GRIs and universities among the total R&D investment into them has remained on average of 11.6% for recent five years, but tends to have decreased from 9.4 % in 2009 and 12.9% in 2008. The royalty income per transfer has doubled to €38,425 (KRW 63.1m) in 2011 from €16,987m (KRW 24.7m) in 2006 (KIAT, 2012). MOTIE produces a plan for


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promoting technology transfer and commercialisation every three year, formerly every five year, based on the Law for Promotion of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation. The 1st Plan was introduced over the period of 2000-2005 focused on producing technology market and the 2nd Plan was implemented focused on enlarging infrastructure for technology transfer and commercialisation over the period of 2006-2008. MOTIE has been implementing the 3rd Plan which consists of five core tasks such as: strengthening the finding and good management of national technology resources; establishment and enlargement of technology finance system; establishment of the system for total process in R&D and commercialisation; support for entering global market of private companies; and enlargement of infrastructure for technology transfer and commercialisation. The Technology Licensing Office (TLO) system for universities and GRIs was introduced in 2006 with the objective of promoting and facilitating university and GRIs-based technology commercialisation. The importance of utilising research outcomes are deemed as equally important as technology development per se these days and thus TLO’s role in putting research outcomes of universities and GRIs into commercialisation is critical. The government’s programme of first stage to support leading TLOs in universities and GRIs has continued for five years since 2006. 22 universities and 13 GRIS have been financed each year with total amount of $3m (KRW 3.4b) or so. Second stage programme started at the early 2011 with a little bit larger size. During the first stage programme, the number of technology transfer from universities and GRIS to private companies has been up to 199.6% and the royalty income from the transfer has also increased 337.1%. As of 2011, the number of TLOs has reached 151 in universities and 121 in GRIs regardless of government’s financial support. The Korean government, by the MKE, MEST and the SMBA together, has implemented more instrumental drivers to improve knowledge circulation since 2009 such as: promotion of more investments by private companies into the GRIs and universities with more incentives for the companies; enlarging governmental matching funds for the investment of private companies; strengthening the collaborative projects even in the area of basic and original technology; introducing a new law for co-owned companies by industry and the GRIs and universities; incorporating more need from industry into R&D in the GRIs and universities; activation of technology forum within the knowledge triangle and so on (NSTC, 2012). In order to enhance technology transfer and commercialisation from the GRIs and universities to the market, the Korean government also introduced a Law for R&D Special Zone in 2005 by which GRIs can spin-off companies more easily and a technology holding company in university is also promoted by the Law for Promotion of Collaboration between Industry and university. The number of the GRIs Companies has increased to 17, as of the early 2011, since starting in 2006. The technology holding companies in universities have also been spreading by easing regulations and government supports such as financial support by the establishment of a new venture capital. Criticism that the basic research in the GRIs and universities has been decreasing has been emerging because of too much emphasis on the entrepreneurial culture in the GRIs and universities through policy instrumental drivers.


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The cluster development policy was implemented, in part, to promote science and technology innovation, in particular, in state-of-the-art industries and SMEs through knowledge circulation. This policy, in part, aims to promote balanced economic growth that will make a contribution to tackling regional disparities in the nation through the establishment of regional innovation systems. The cluster development policies are based upon the ‘Special Law for Balanced National Development,’ which was devised in 2003, the ‘Second Comprehensive Plan for Promoting Regional S&T 2005-2007,’ laid out in 2004, and the ‘First Five-Year Balanced National Development Plan’ that was devised in 2005. The establishment of innovation clusters in regions includes: 1) creating clusters based upon networks amongst major innovation players in local regions; 2) designating seven pilot clusters with the aim of linking existing industrial clusters to R&D centres, such as the Ulsan Automotive Components Cluster, the Changwon Advanced Appliance Cluster, the Gwangju Photonics Industry Cluster, the Gumi Digital Electronics Industry Cluster, the Wonju Advanced Medical Industry Cluster, Gunsan Automobile Appliance Components Cluster, the Banwol Sihwa Advanced Component Material Cluster; and 3) designating the "Daedok R&D Special Zone" for expediting commercialisation of research outcomes of the Daedok R&D Complex. The Daedok R&D Special Zone expanded to Daegu and Gwangu at the end of 2010 and to Busan in 2012. The evaluation on how successful those clusters have been is not conducted yet. The responsibility to supervise Daedok Innopolis was moved to the MSIP from MOTIE in February 2013. There are four policy measures designed to encourage networking amongst SMEs, universities and research institutes:

Industry-academia-research institute joint technology development programme

-Encouraging SMEs to utilise quality resources of universities and research institutes

-Support up to 75% of R&D cost

-Total support fund: €47m;

Joint SME in-house research institute installation programme

-Encouraging SMEs to build in-house research institute in collaboration with universities and research institutes

-Total support fund: €25m;

Industry-university cooperation facility support programme

-Unitising university research facilities for SMEs’ research activities

-Support labour cost, material cost, and equipment rental cost; and

Pooling research equipment programme

-Utilising cutting-edge research equipment of university and research institute for SMEs’ research activity

-Total supporting fund: €8m.


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2.7 OVERALL ASSESSMENT

According to the OECD reviews of Korea’s innovation policy in 2009, Korea has had strengths in many aspects such as strong commitment of successive governments to technology-based economic development, a national consensus on the importance of science, technology and innovation as drivers of future socioeconomic growth, high levels of GERD and BERD, a highly educated labour force, good and improving framework conditions for innovation, high degree of interest in science and technology, large firms that are internationally competitive, capability to produce talent, and strong ICT infrastructure and the like (OECD, 2009a). The Lee Myung-bak administration, like Korea’s successive governments, has strongly supported the development of research, education and innovation systems, encouraging private sector investment in R&D, nurturing talented HRST and accelerating knowledge production and circulation.

In terms of the levels of GERD and the ratio of BERD, Korea has reached one of the highest levels in the world. Several leading companies such as Samsung, LG, and Hyundai Motors and the like have become renowned and competitive transnational corporations with operations across the globe and leading-edge technologies. The number of papers and patents produced in research and innovation systems has rapidly increased to a world class level. The concerted efforts to come up with new plans and to implement specific schemes based on the plans between many ministries, particularly for the development of technology convergence, have been strengthened. More and more national R&D projects have evolved into more collaborative style among industry, university and the GRIs. The number of TLOs, Technoparks, regional clusters and university- and GRIs-companies for technology transfer and commercialisation has been significantly increasing. National R&D investments both by government and business enterprise sector has moved towards more public and welfare-oriented R&D to respond to social challenges, compared with five or ten years before, when it mainly focused on the development of industrial R&D. The various tax incentives and procurement system have been incentives for the SMEs. However, there exist barriers, weaknesses and problems. Despite the high level of research mobilisation for national R&D and concerted efforts of many ministries for the policy and programme planning, the efficiency and effectiveness of R&D investment and policy implementation are still not high because of excessive competition between industry, university and public sector research institutes in the selection process of projects with little differentiation in their role for research and innovation, the weak role of a central body for coordination, and a low level of institutional funding for the GRIs. Additionally, the evaluation of R&D outcome has focused on the quantitative aspects such as the number of papers and patents, and the superficial number of participants for collaboration between industry, university and the public sector research organisations. In spite of the significantly increasing number of papers and patents, their quality is still low because the evaluation system is focused on the quantitative outputs, with weak capacity to conduct fundamental research both in the university and the GRIs,


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superficial collaboration for obtaining a government project not substantial knowledge circulation between industry, university and the GRIs and so on. Despite the increasing number of research institutes in SMEs and high level of private investment, the innovation gap between the chaebol, Korean big conglomerates, and SMEs has widened due to too much concentrated and closed R&D system in chaebol, weak HRST in SMEs, and low technology transfer from universities and the GRIs to SMEs. In spite of R&D globalisation, the total level of investment for internationalisation of S&T and global open innovation are very low. The main investment has usually gone to small projects base including still tiny participation in overseas R&D programmes and organisations. Korea has recently faced lower economic growth than the last decades and expected to continue for a long time. The gap between the reach and poor, between the big companies and SMEs, and between mega cities and rural areas has been widening. The new president, Park Geun-hye raised the new paradigm of the creative economy strongly based on science, technology and ICT and their convergence in order to solve those two problems. The new government has tried to focus on creating a science, technology and business eco-system through various collaboration of public research institutes, universities and business sector in order to contribute to the creative economy. The specific ways and tools are in the process of being designed by mainly the MSIP. The overall assessment of such kinds of policy changes of the new Administration maybe not appropriate because it is still early stage. There are, however, some arguments such as unclear concept of the creative economy, the difficult balance of the role of the MSIP between the role for coordination of government R&D budget and the role for implementation of MSIP’s own R&D budget, less increasing government R&D investment because of lower economic growth, too much burden on GRIs for creative economy especially supporting SMEs, and emphasising the importance of SMEs but still weak innovative capacity and policy updates etc. p and postdoctoral programme.


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3 National policies for R&D&I

3.1 LABOUR MARKET FOR RESEARCHERS

3.1.1 Stocks of researchers

As of 2012, the total number of Korea’s researchers was 401,724 which were more than doubled from 2001 when the number of researchers was 178,937. Among them the number of doctoral researchers was 92,543 and the ratio to the total researchers was 23.1%. The number of researchers in firms was 272,175, compared to 188,211 in university and 39,738 in public research institutes. 66.2% (53,947) of doctoral researchers belonged to universities, compared to 18.0% (14,677) in companies and 15.7 % (12,818) in the public research institutes. The number of researchers per 1,000 total employments is 11.1. The total number of researchers per 10,000 populations was 54.0, which was slightly higher than those of advanced countries such as 51.5 in 2009 in Japan, 38 in 2009 in Germany and 41.4 in 2008 in England (NSTC, 2011). The number of foreign doctoral students in Korea has increased to 6.7 % in 2009 from 1.2% in 1998 (OECD, 2011). They mainly have come from India, Vietnam and other the Third world countries in Asia in order to study and take part in a project while studying. Recently, high level of qualified researchers to be hired by universities and GRIS and joined a project as a researcher has increased. However, more doctoral students and post-doctoral scientists have gone abroad, especially to the USA and got jobs as a researcher in universities and private companies. According to IMD in 2011, Korea’ brain drain index was 3.68, 44th in the world. The outflow versus inflow rate of high caliber S&T human resources is 11.68, which is the second largest amongst the OECD member countries. Such kind of unbalanced ratio between outflow and inflow of the HRST is a serious matter. The total number of researchers including Bachelors and Masters for carrying out both national and private R&D is not low. However, the doctoral researchers and high calibre scientists to advance scientific knowledge and original technology especially in the field of fusion technology and fundamental research are not sufficient.

3.1.2 Providing attractive employment and working conditions

The promotion, job stability and relative salaries of researchers differ. In the business sector, especially in big companies and high-tech areas, relative salaries of researchers are very high. Their promotion opportunities are, however, not high and there is limited job stability. The average retirement age in the business sector is in early 50s. In public research institutes, the retirement age of researchers is 61 and highly stable until reaching this age. The level of their salaries is relatively lower than those of business sector, in particular in the big companies. The promotion ladder of public researchers is simply three steps and the promotion is rather difficult. The researchers in universities are retired at the age of 65 and strongly stable with


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relatively high salaries. The promotion is, however, getting more difficult with higher standard criteria. Academic staff in national and public HEIs has the status of civil servant and the number of staff are highly regulated by MEST and legislation. Those who are employed in national research institutes are also civil servants under similar conditions. The researchers and staff in the GRIs are not civil servants. The GRIs have, however, a ceiling regulated by the MOSF, by which the total amount of money for staff’s salary and management costs is limited. Researchers in universities have the pension scheme similar with civil servants but GRIs’ researchers do not have such pension. That is why researchers usually move from GRIs to universities. The average salary of workers working in the field of science, engineering and technology was €46,360 in 2011. In the natural sciences it is €44,020, compared to engineering €47,501, and medical sector €50,390. Salaries are relatively close: Business sector €47,782, compared to university €46,937 and public research institutes €45,194. The overall attraction of researchers in terms of good job conditions is relatively lower than other sectors such as media, finance, business management, law etc.

3.1.3 Open recruitment and portability of grants

Recently the MSIP has encouraged open recruitment for staff in universities and the GRIs. Any non-nationals are now eligible in competitions for permanent research and academic positions. There is no simple and clear system or measures in place for international advertising and the recognition of professional qualifications. In case of foreign doctoral students, universities and the GRIs also have open recruitment and grants system supported by the NRF. The research grants are not portable. These types of recruitment for foreign doctoral students are conducted usually through global networks of universities and the GRIs. Universities and the GRIs try to keep individual researchers and organisations in their global networks posted the information on the supporting system of the NRF or to ask them to propose directly to universities and the GRIs who have their own supporting system for foreign doctoral students. As a means to attract high calibre scientists and engineers from overseas countries, the NRF has operated full-fledged programmes as follows:

World Class University (WCU) programme for attraction of renowned foreign researchers as full-time professors or leading researchers with €534.4m in total for five years until 2012;

Providing post-doctoral students of developing countries with costs of living and others for 6 months-1 year

Providing renowned foreign scientists with costs of living in Korea for 10days to 3months to build networks

Attraction of foreign research centres to conduct joint research with financial and managerial benefits


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The KIAT has supported companies for employment of foreign engineers, issuing a gold visa to easily get a job in Korea, training Korean and helping living conditions with a counselling centre. The Ministry of Justice has introduced an on-line visa programme for high calibre overseas human resources, the Human Net KOREA programme. It also announced the legislation of a new law, which grants the right of residence to those overseas expert human resources dwelling in Korea possessing high calibre and capability.

Many GRIs have managed post-doctoral programme for foreign students and scientists and some of them have employed directly renowned foreign researchers with high salary and good living conditions.

3.1.4 Enhancing the training, skills and experience of researchers

The Korean HEIs and the GRIs have operated postgraduate training programmes for Masters, PhDs, and Post-doc diplomas with high openness to foreign students and researchers. There are national policies for universities to enlarge lectures in English and open doctoral programmes in collaboration with other universities and the GRIs. The 28 GRIs established the University of Science and Technology (UST, www.ust.ac.kr) together in 2003 as an associated university with postgraduate programmes. Senior researchers in the GRIs can be assigned as professors and to teach master and doctoral students who work with them in the GRIs and get a graduate certificate from the UST. Nearly 10% of students in the UST are foreigners. There is also a concerted postgraduate programme between Korean HEIs and the GRIs. Based on the signed agreement between them, the GRIs and the universities openly recruit students, who also work and learn to participate in a project in the GRIs. Foreign students can be an applicant for this programme.

3.2 RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURES

MEST had supported the establishment of large research infrastructures to respond to the increasing demand by both domestic and overseas research communities. The role and function of MEST to formulate and implement the policy for supporting establishment or large research infrastructure remains the same in the MSIP of the new government. With the recognition of this low level of investment, the 577 Initiative of Lee Myung-bak administrations emphasised the need for a new implementation plan to renew and newly establish large research infrastructures. Following the advancement plan for enlargement and efficient management for research infrastructures in 2009, MEST set out in 2010 the National Large Facilities Roadmap with 12 other Ministries for the next 15 years (NSTC, 2010c). The Roadmap included 5 sectors which consist of 69 large infrastructures with priorities to establish. The five areas are advancement of core industry, strengthening development of new technology for creation of new industry, R&D for responding to global issues, acquirement of core capability for national technology, and R&D for basic and convergent technology. According to this, the Korean government is expected to invest more than 3% of government R&D

http://www.ust.ac.kr/


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budget in the establishment of research infrastructures including global top 5 large research infrastructures, aiming at achieving to the G-7 level until 2025. The NSTC updated this Roadmap in December 2012 and focused more strengthening the contribution to the development of big science, complex capital goods and new convergent industry. In addition, as of the first quarter of 2011, one of the largest projects of the Lee Myung-bak administration is to create the International Science and Technology Business Belt. It aims to establish the International Basic Science Research Institute (IBS) and a neutron accelerator in a strategic region, which is expected to form a scientific and technological hub in Asia, and to create a functional region to link together industry, education, and research systems. The IBS is supposed to employ nearly 3,000 researchers in the field of fundamental research, including large portion of foreign researchers. To this end, the former government was planning to make an investment of €2,450m over the period of seven years. The site is going to be decided within June 2011. The new government has, however, faced some budget problems due to slugging economy and the demand for new investment by the welfare commitments in the presidential campaign. That is why the original plan has been changing. Another noteworthy programme is the State-of-the-art Medical Complex Programme, in which a total of €3,920m started to be invested for a period of thirty years until 2038. The Complex consists of three centres: the ‘New Drug Development Support Centre’ in which joint research amongst industry, academia, and research institutes for evaluating and optimising candidate substances for new drugs will take place; the ‘State-of-the-art Medical Device Development Support Centre’ that designs cutting-edge medical device, produce pilot products, and evaluate their performances; and the ‘State-of-the-art Clinical Trial Centre’ that will verify the safety and efficacy of candidate substances and pilot products. The Complex has been situated in two sites since 2010 in Daegu City’s Sinseo Region and Choongcheongbukdo Province’s Osong Region. Those regions will try to recruit foreign researchers and to provide appropriate living environment including medical services.

3.3 STRENGTHENING RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS

3.3.1 Quality of national higher education system

There are many types of higher education institutions (HEIs) in Korea, including universities, two-year colleges, and specialised institutions such as industrial colleges, education colleges and technical colleges. There are also HEIs under the jurisdiction of provincial governments or government agencies other than the MEST (OECD, 2009b). The number of higher educational institutions as of 2012 amounted to 501. Private universities established by private investors account for 85.3% of all HEIs. The employees in those universities are not civil servant. The number of students of HEIs as of 2012 reached to approximately 3.0 million, which accounts for 6.0% of the 50 million populations. The number of female students amounted to approximately 1.55 million.


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The number of annual graduates of HEIs in 2011 was approximately 600,161 and the figure has been decreasing since 2006. The number of employees in the same year was approximately 380,000, which accounts for 63.3% of all graduates. The number of Ph. D holders graduating in 2011 was 11,645 and that of master’s degree holders graduating in the same year was 79,411. Korea’s HEIs have diverse functions encompassing teaching, research, and knowledge transfer to contribute to local or regional wealth and economic development. Recently, with changes in the evaluation system for professors, knowledge production and transfer, even commercialisation has been emphasising with the establishment a special division in charge of project and patent management and technology transfer and commercialisation. The Korea Association of Technology Transfer Management established in 2003 has also been activated. Universities account for 78% of the nation’s publication of papers and 40% of the patent application. The ratio of technology transfer and the number of the University Companies has been increasing. The Korean Council for University Education is operating a portal www.kcue.or.kr where every HEI can be accessed and make policy suggestions to the government and thus reflect them on the policymaking for facilitating collaboration amongst universities and improving the quality of university education. There are five research universities such as KAIST, POSTECH, GIST, UST and DGIST which are focused on graduate schools in science and technology. In particular KAIST, POSTECH, GIST and Seoul National University are world class universities which rank within 100th in the world. More than any other countries, Korea has ensured that virtually all students complete secondary education and has moved toward universal tertiary education, with more than 80% of young people attending universities or junior colleges, by far one of the highest levels in the OECD area. Government spending for the HEIs is low at nearly half the OECD average, while private spending is high at more than four times the OECD average (OECD, 2009a). Korean HEIs system has faced challenges, in particular, quality problem. The rapid expansion of the HEIs has resulted in over-education and lower quality. The HEIs has still been conventional lecture-dominated teaching which is inappropriate for entrepreneurs and creative thinkers. The national HE sector used €3,299m in 2011, 10.1% of national gross R&D funds, and published 20,526 SCI papers(which accounts for nearly 80% of total national SCI papers), applied 7,432 patents and registered 3,630 patents, while public research institutes used €4,374 and produced 4,781 SCI papers, 5,563 patents applications and 2,513 patents registration. The number of foreign students in national HE sector increased up to 63,578 in 2011 from 31,933 in 2007 and 3,963 in 2000. There are no Korean universities in Shanghai top 100 HE index. Thee universities ranked in Times High Education in 2012 as follows: Pohang University of Science and Technology in 53rd, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 93th, SEOUL National University in 124th. Interestingly Pohang University of Science and Technology ranked 1st and KAIST 3rd in The Times Higher Education 100 Under 50. According to the Law for High Education, all of universities conduct self-evaluation about organisation’s management performance by an evaluation committee

http://www.kcue.or.kr/


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organised by the university every two years and should publicly open the results. The Ministry of Education introduced the new evaluation scheme in 2011 so called ‘University Evaluation Certification System’ by which all universities should pass the evaluation guidelines which is conducted ad-hoc committee appointed by the MOE. The university which pass the evaluation keep the appropriate level of funding support by government. The evaluation criteria consist of six areas with 17 sections and 55 indexes. The six areas are 1) education objectives and development plan, 2) the quality of professors and staff, 3) quality of education, 4) education facilities, 5) financial capability and management, 6) social service and responsibility. Thirty universities were passed the evaluation criteria in 2011. In addition, Jungang Ilbo, the one of the biggest media in Korea, conducts university evaluation every year by their own criteria. According to the evaluation in 2012, KAIST, POESTEC (former Pohang University), Yonsei University, Seoul University, and SungKyunKwan University ranked in 1st to 5th respectively.

3.3.2 Academic autonomy

The HEIs in Korea have been highly regulated by MOE in that they have to select their students through the same national entrance exam up to an entrance quota. The national and public universities have been more severely regulated in terms of management. The relatively tight control from MOE has led to the lack of sufficient autonomy and flexibility for HEIs. Recently, MOE has adopted a different approach to change the national HEIs into private entity or more private-style management with autonomy in their actions, rather than bearing bureaucratic regulations down on them. The way of election of a university president had been different in national and private universities. In a national and public university, the president is directly elected by a secret vote of regular professors in the university and approved by its board of directors. A president in most private universities is directly selected by a board of directors referring to opinions of professors in various ways. Anyone external to the university can be a candidate for president. Recently, presidential election system in the national and public university has changed to reduce negative impact due to strong competition and long voting process. A special committee is set to select several candidates and to recommend to the Minister of MOE. In both cases, the MOE which was newly established from MEST formally approves the president without any serious review. The way of election can be changed by a board of directors with a high level of autonomy from the government. The board of directors in the private universities has high power in terms of selecting its president. The board of directors in national and public universities is appointed by the government and the board of directors in private universities is appointed by their owners or major stake holders.

3.3.3 Academic funding

Total amount of universities’ R&D expenses in 2011 amounted to €3,299m (KRW 5.3t), which accounts for 10.1% of the nation’s total R&D expenditure, and consists of


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€1,364m in national and public universities and €1,935m in private universities. The Korean HEIs have dual funding system which consists of government institutional funding for employers’ salary, management costs and some research funds, and project funding from government departments or industry for their research activity by individual professors or research unit. The source of funds in both national universities and private universities usually comes from government and some, in part, from students fees, such as 95% in national and public universities and 86% in private universities. Even though the HEIs have every two year self-evaluation system and government has introduced evaluation-certification system by government agency qualified, government distribute the budget the HEIs need the salary for their professors and staff, management and in part some research on the basis of the number of professors and staff which are pre-set by government in particular by the MOSF without any links to the evaluation results. The HEIs have to get further research funds by participating in competitive tendering operated by funding agencies which belong to relevant departments. Universities can make decisions for allocating resources autonomously in line with their research priorities. More than 80% of budget in national and public universities is block funding. Private universities have lower level of block funding, with no clear data. S HEIs conducts three types of researches at a similar rate: 36.2% for basic research, 29.6% for applied research and 34.1% for experimental development research. The proportion of experimental development performed in universities has increased from 32.7% in 2007 at the expense of a relative decline in basic research which was 41.1% in 2007.

3.4 KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER

3.4.1 Intellectual property (IP) policies

The government has recognised the growing importance of intellectual property. In the process of evaluation at all levels such as project and programme evaluation, policy evaluation, and evaluation for organisational performance and personal performance, the Korean government has emphasised the importance of the number of papers and patents application. Those policy instruments results in the 4th in patent application and the 11th in the world in terms of the number of SCI level papers, as mentioned 2.4.1. The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) has introduced the patent examination in the planning stage for R&D programmes and relatively big projects to ensure that they will produce strong patents. KIPO has also supported the expenses of patent applications for some patens which result from the R&D projects conducted in the GRIs and universities. In 2011, the MOSF started to expand the financial support for patent analysis in the planning stage by all of R&D relevant departments in the form of matching fund together with KIPO to cover more R&D programmes and projects. With those efforts for strong patents from the outset of projects, the MOSF introduced the quality evaluation system for the performance in basic and applied R&D in 2010 and extends nearly all of R&D programmes including those for promotion of HRST, international collaboration and service R&D, covering 78% of R&D programmes which should be evaluated by the Law and guidelines (NSTC,


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2010d). KIPO also introduced more strategic ways in 2011 to improve the quality of patents with four strategies and eleven relevant tasks as mentioned in 2.4.2. If any researchers in the GRIs and universities transfer their patents to private companies and get some royalty, they can personally get more than 50% of the royalty to motivate patents production and transfer. In order to activate patents production and their transferring and commercialisation, The Technology Licensing Office (TLO) system for universities and the GRIs was introduced in 2006. The government’s programme of first stage to support leading TLOs in universities and the GRIs continued for five years from April 2006 until March 2011. 22 universities and 13 GRIS have been financed each year with total amount of 3 million dollars or so. The second-stage programme has started in April 2011 with slightly larger size. During the first-stage programme, the number of technology transfer from universities and the GRIS to private companies and royalty incomes from the transfer have increased. As of 2011, the number of TLOs including those established by universities and the GRIs without government financial support has reached 151 in universities and 121 in the GRIs. Due to active role of the TLOs, the number of patents both in universities and public research organisations has increased from 55,758 in 2007 to 116, 4397 in 2011 and the number of technology transfer, from university and public research institutes to business sector, by written contracts, has also increased to 5,193 in 2011 from 2,593 in 2007. The Korean government has recognised the importance of strategic IP management in national level as well and constituted a new law, the Basic Law for Managing Intellectual Property. In April 2011, the National Assembly passed the Law that mandates the creation of the Intellectual Property Management Council. Shortly after the legislation, the Council was established under the Prime Minister’s Office and chaired by the Prime Minister. The Council was responsible for facilitating the creation, protection, and utilisation of intellectual property. The Council was abolished and the function of the Council was moved into MSIP in February 2013. Of course, the role and function of the Council still exists in the MSIP for more coherent and standardised IPR policies.

3.4.2 Other policy measures aiming to promote public-private knowledge transfer

The Korean government is pursing towards-conducting collaborative R&D in GRIs under the so called project base system (PBS) with low level of institutional funding at a level of less than 40% since 1997. As of at the end of 2012, the ratio of collaborative research with industry and university is more than 75% of the total governmental research projects conducted in GRIs especially under the ISTK. The policy instruments have resulted in superficially strong collaboration with industry and universities and more focusing the majority of R&D in the GRIs on that of developmental stage rather than basic science and technology. MOTIE produces a plan for promoting technology transfer and commercialisation every three years, formerly every five years, based on the Law for Promotion of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation. The 1st Plan was introduced over the


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period of 2000-2005, focusing on producing technology market and the 2nd Plan was implemented focusing on enlarging infrastructure for technology transfer and commercialisation over the period of 2006-2008. The MKE, MOTIE since February 2013, has been implementing the 3rd Plan which consists of five core tasks such as: strengthening the finding and good management of national technology resources; establishment and enlargement of technology finance system; establishment of the system for total process in R&D and commercialisation; support for entering global market of private companies; and enlargement of infrastructure for technology transfer and commercialisation. In order to enhance technology transfer and commercialisation from the GRIs and universities to the market, the Korean government also introduced a new law for the GRIs Company based on the Law for R&D Special Zone launched in 2005 and a technology holding company in university based on the Law for Promotion of Collaboration between Industry and University. The number of the GRIs Companies has increased to 17 in 2011 to 30 in May 2012 since starting in 2006. The technology holding companies in universities have also been spreading by easing regulations and government supports schemes such as financial support by the establishment of a new venture capital. The number of university holding companies is 23 as of September 2012. Criticism that the basic research in the GRIs and universities has been decreasing has been emerging because of too much emphasis on the entrepreneurial culture in the GRIs and universities through policy instrumental drivers. The venture certification system initiated in 1988 finds its legal basis in the Special Law on Fostering Venture Companies. The criteria for establishing a venture company are: a company has to invest in R&D over 5% vis-à-vis its total sales; a company in which a venture capital invested at least 20% of its capital; a company of which products originated from patented technology yield at least 50% of the total sales; and a company of which products originated from national R&D projects yield over 50% of the total sales. In Korea, big conglomerates and SMEs have more spin-off cases than universities and public research institutions. It is because venture companies made their presence in Korea rather recently and the GRIs only recently started making efforts to put R&D outcomes into commercialisation. In terms of areas of spin-offs, IT area takes up the largest; start-up in the IT area requires technological capability and oftentimes previous institutions’ R&D experiences enabled the start-up. There are so many programmes to support spinoffs and start-ups by the Small and Medium Business Administration (SMBA). In 2011, the MKE created new public venture capital to financially support them. The level of researchers’ inter-sectoral mobility between public and private institutes is not high. It has been easy to move to other research institutes because of the continuity of participation in projects and personal evaluation on research outputs. There have been no laws and rules to activate mobility. Recently the Korean government has tried to encourage various exchanges of researchers between research institutes with supporting guidelines and new institutions. More and more professionals and executive managers from private sectors have increasingly participated as important members in the NSTC, governmental advisory


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bodies, the managerial bodies such as Research Councils, the NRF, KETI and KIAT and the like and as evaluation committee members at all levels.

3.5 ASSESSMENT

The total number of postgraduate students is increasing due to enhancing scholarships but labour market to employ them is weak. Despite the increasing number of postgraduate students, high calibre scientists to advance scientific knowledge and original technology especially in the field of fusion technology and fundamental research are not sufficient. More than 80% of young people in Korea attend universities or junior colleges, by far one of the highest levels in the OECD area. Government spending for the HEIs, however is low at nearly half the OECD average, while private spending is high at more than four times the OECD average. The rapid expansion of the HEIs has resulted in over-education and lower quality and most of the HEIs have still been conventional lecture-dominated teaching. The way of election of a university president in a national and public university has been dramatically changed. MEST introduced new evaluation index to review the change in the presidential election system from direct voting from all of professors to selection and recommendation by a special committee. It is still not clear if such kinds of changes are successful or not in terms of the balance between autonomy and effectiveness of university management. The government R&D has been increasing from 2.79 % of GDP in 2005 to 4.03% in 2011, but still remain lower than the target goal of 5% of GDP by 2012 in 577 initiatives. The new Park Geun-hye’s government has not yet clearly expressed about the target goal. The proportion of experimental development performed in universities has increased at the expense of a relative decline in basic research. The proportion of private-led joint projects has increased participating academia and public research institutes. The ratio of collaborative R&D in the public research institutes reaches nearly 70% in many public research institutes. Criticism that the basic research in the GRIs and universities has been decreasing has been expanding because of too much emphasis on the entrepreneurial culture in the GRIs and universities through policy instrumental drivers. The level of researchers’ inter-sectoral mobility between public and private institutes is also not high. The Korean government and the National Assembly constituted the Basic Law for Managing Intellectual Property in April 2011. It is quite crucial change in the IP management at all levels including government. According to the Law, the Intellectual Property Management Council was established and a Five-year Plan was set by the Council to strategically facilitate the creation, protection, and utilisation of intellectual property. The level of investment in both pre-IP review and technology transfer activity is expected to increase. The Council was, however, moved into the newly established MSIP. It is still not clear whether its aim would be reached through the MSIP.


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4 International R&D&I Cooperation

4.1 MAIN FEATURES OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION POLICY

Korea’s development of science and technology has long continued to have close relations with the USA. The first GRI in Korea is the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, www.kist.re.kr) which was established with the support and consulting of the USA in 1966. The majority of Korean students who wanted to undertake postgraduate studies have done do in the USA. The USA has long been the strongest ally in both economic and political terms. Recently, the situation has started to change due to the need for enhancing a more open innovation paradigm pursuing efficient and speedy development with more partners abroad for R&D in science, technology and innovation. In particular, most of the EU countries have become strategic partners with recognition of their strong capability of science and technology. The majority of R&D investment of the Korean government has shifted too much to the area of economic development and industrial growth. The EU has balanced in economic growth and the quality of life and developed more efficient research and innovation systems than those in Korea. This is why Korea needed a change. The increasing participation in the FP and EUREKA programmes and bi- and multi-lateral agreements, including the Korea-EU Free Trade Agreement, are clear evidence of this change.

Many Korean researchers in the GRIs and universities have also tried to build collaborative relations with many European countries thorough joint projects and partnerships as well as participating in the FP and EUREKA. The European countries have endeavoured to establish ties with Korea, which has some strength in research and innovation systems. There has been a tendency to strengthening interactions between researchers in Korea and the EU. Even though the partnerships are still in an early stage, such kinds of mutual interests will enhance the pace and depth of building partnerships and positive outcomes.

Even though the Korean government has increased funds and enlarged various collaborative programmes, the total amount of funds for international cooperation is still small and the results of joint research and cooperation have been unclear and still not significant. In 2010, the number of international co-patenting per researcher is 0.000267; less than the average 0.000416 in OECD countries. Until the last government in 2012, the MKE and MOST have introduced many small programmes with insufficient cooperation between two Ministries. More government departments and local governments have also tried to introduce different small programmes with similar purposes. Such kinds of situations have resulted in a little bit ineffective efforts for international cooperation and cross-border knowledge flows.

http://www.kist.re.kr/


44

4.2 NATIONAL PARTICIPATION IN INTERGOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS AND SCHEMES

Korea has taken part in the ITER (International Thermal Nuclear Experimental Reactor) project with 6 partners (EU, Japan, Russia, USA, China, and India). The ITER project is going to spend €11.2b for fifty years and Korea is supposed to expend €1.1b cash. Korea and the EU signed a Collaboration Agreement for ITER in N0vember in 2006. Korea has also participated in several projects in CERN and operated a CERN fellow programme to dispatch Korean researchers to CERN, based on an agreement between MEST and CERN. The Korean government has also supported the International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC) located in Moscow as a member since 1998 in the form of Government Programme, Partner Programme, Commercialization Support Programme and Competency Building Programme etc. The ISTC was established in December 1993 and is now being operated by US, Japan, EU, Russia, Canada, Norway and Korea.

4.3 COOPERATION WITH THE EU

4.3.1 Participation in EU Framework Programmes

There was a Science and Technology Collaboration Agreement between Korea and the EU in 1992 and the Agreement was renewed in 2006. With increasing globalisation and for promoting cross-border flows of knowledge, the Korean government has emphasised international cooperation with the EU through the participation in inter-governmental schemes such as EUREKA, COST, FP7 and ERAnets. The Korean government is establishing a global open innovation system through promotion of networking and co-projects with EU partners and pursuing strategic S&T globalisation with a view towards becoming a global S&T leader, as is stated in the S&T Basic Plan devised in 2008 and the Advancement Planning in S&T in 2010 which has been being annually monitored and updated. For the strategic S&T globalisation, the government is taking the following measures: strategic expansion of global joint research; highlighting the characteristics of regional S&T cooperation; active participation in international organisations and programmes; expansion of inter-Korean S&T exchange cooperation; and securing S&T globalisation investment and improving its efficiency. The MKE and MEST were major players to strengthen internationalisation of Korean R&D and to improve cross-border flows of knowledge. Since 2010, the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT, www.kiat.or.kr), on behalf of the MKE (now MOTIE), has supported financially EU

http://www.kiat.or.kr/


45

Framework Programme (FP) activities and EUREKA with a view towards encouraging researchers to participate in them. The total fund of KIAT for international collaborative research including FP and EUREKA is €32m in 2013. A research team participated the consortium with EU countries can get maximum €0.35m each year for three years. A research team selected for international collaborative research can get maximum €0.7m each year for 10 years. The total €26.3m was given to selected teams in 2010 from those four programmes, EUREKA and the FP programme. The status of the FP7 participation has been as follows: Table 4.1: Korea (Republic of) participations in FP7

All submitted Mainlisted

Success Rate:

%

Proposal SP Description2

Proposal Program

Number of Proposals

Number of Applicants

Number of Proposals

Number of Applicants

Proposal Total Cost

CIP

CIP-ICT-PSP 1 2

SP1-Cooperation ENERGY 5 5 1 1 7,476,312 20.0

SP1-Cooperation ENV 8 8 1 1 12,600,159 12.5

SP1-Cooperation HEALTH 18 22 6 8 69,167,776 36.4

SP1-Cooperation ICT 96 108 16 20 67,294,100 18.5

SP1-Cooperation KBBE 4 4

SP1-Cooperation NMP 16 17 2 2 11,004,181 11.76

SP1-Cooperation SEC 5 9

SP1-Cooperation SP1-JTI 5 5

SP1-Cooperation SPA 5 5

SP1-Cooperation SSH 5 5

SP1-Cooperation TPT 3 3

SP2-Ideas ERC 4 4

SP3-People PEOPLE 44 45 13 14 31.11

SP4-Capacities INCO 8 12 4 7 6,610,779 58.3

SP4-Capacities INFRA 12 14 7 8 137,572,966 57.14

SP4-Capacities SiS 2 2

SP4-Capacities SME 1 1

SP5-Euratom Fission 1 1 1 1 38,006,841 100

Sum: 243 272 51 62 349,733,114 22.7

According to FP7 data, the number of submitted Korean proposals and applicants participation are 243 and 272 so far respectively. The success rate, which means applicants in mainlisted proposals and applicants in all submitted proposals and


46

applicants from Korea, was average 22.79%. The segmentation of the main listed number of proposals is as shown in table 2. Table 4.2: Korea (Republic of) Contract type of the FP7 projects with country's participation

Proposal Sub Funding Description Number of Proposals Number of Proposals

Collaborative project for specific cooperation actions dedicated to international cooperation partner countries (SICA) 8 2

Collaborative project (generic) 20 3

Coordinating action 12 2

Integrating Activities / e-Infrastructures 11 6

International Incoming Fellowships (IIF) 6 1

International Outgoing Fellowships (IOF) 12 2

International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) 22 10

Large-scale integrating project 32 7

Network of Excellence 4 2

Small or medium-scale focused research project 31 3

Small or medium-scale focused research project INFSO (STREP) 48 6

Supporting action 21 7

16

Sum: 243 51

The areas of proposals and participations have been focused on the ICT, health, People and infrastructure. The Korean Scientific Cooperation Network with ERA (KORANET) was established in 2009 to intensify and strengthen the S&T cooperation between Korea and the European Research Area. The NRF carries out the KORANET programme in tandem with the ten institutions from the nine countries within the EU to expand the scope of international science and technology network between Korea and the EU. As it conducts the programme, the NRF also designs and carries out international joint research support programmes. The KORANET programme is a part of the 7th EU Framework Programme in which Korea and nine European countries participate as partners with the project period from January, 2009 to December, 2012. The International Cooperation Bureau of the BMBF of Germany is responsible for the management of the project and the EC covers the expenses for the project. Korea established the Korea-EU Science and Technology Cooperation Advancement Programme (KESTCAP, www.kestcap.org) in 2006 with twelve European countries.

http://www.kestcap.org/


47

The Programme aims to develop sustainable S&T cooperation strategies, disseminate S&T information, promote cooperation and organise and support cooperative events between Korea and the EU.

4.3.2 Bi- and multilateral agreements with EU countries

The Korean government strives to strengthen bilateral partnerships with individual EU countries. The Korean government and Germany, the Korea’s largest trading partner among the ERA countries, concluded their bilateral agreement in 1986. The two governments have operated two committees; the Korea-Germany S&T Cooperation Committee and the Korea-Germany Industrial Technology Committee. The NRF and KISTEP have supported efficient management of those committees. Many universities and the GRIs in the two countries have developed their individual partnerships.

As of 2010, the Korean government made 17 bilateral agreements with European countries, including France in 1981 and the UK in 1985 and encouraged universities and the GRIs to establish productive partnership with universities and public research organisations in those countries. Unfortunately there are no clear and formal information about how large and successful the programmes are.

4.4 COOPERATION WITH NON EU COUNTRIES OR REGIONS

4.4.1 Main countries

The government is seeking science and technology cooperation through bilateral summit diplomacy. A good example is the establishment of a green model that spearheads global cooperation based upon the alliance between Korea and the US through Korea-US science and technology summit meetings. The two countries established the global green growth cooperation partnership (smart grid) and the Korea-US summit global issue cooperation partnership (climate change, staving off poverty, etc.) through the Korea-US summit meeting held in June 2009. Korea’s development of science and technology has long continued to have close relations with the USA. The first GRI in Korea is the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, www.kist.re.kr) which was established with the support and consulting of the USA. The majority of Korean students who wanted to undertake postgraduate studies have done do in the USA. The USA has long been the strongest ally in both economic and political terms. Since the 1990s, the Korean government has tried to expand global partnerships to Japan, China, India, Brazil and Russia and developing countries. The G20 Seoul summit is a good example of recent approach for multilateral summit diplomacy. Korea served as a chair country for the Summit and addressed the issue of strengthening science and technology cooperation in diverse areas with countries such as Russia and India. The Korean government has also made strategic endeavour to strengthen multilateral cooperation with East Asian countries to solve such problems as climate and environment within the region and to widen reciprocal

http://www.kist.re.kr/


48

cooperation with developing countries such as Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Brunei and the like.

4.4.2 Main instruments

The Korean government has increased funds to participate international R&D programmes and enlarged various collaborative programmes to attract foreign partners and scientists on the basis of bi- and multi-lateral approaches. Since 2010, the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology (KIAT, www.kiat.or.kr), on behalf of the MKE, has operated four kinds of programmes to fund international collaborative joint research projects among industry, academia and public research organisations in Korea and overseas countries for technology development as follows:

1) A strategic programme to support a research team with €0.648m for five years for the development of strategic technology by a consortium among industry-university-research organisations in Korea and foreign countries compulsorily led by a Korean research institute, funding;

2) A demand-oriented programme to support a big project with €0.648m for maximum five years or support for a small project with €0.192m for three years for the development of world class technology needed in global market;

3) A global products development programme to support €0.648m each project for three years for the development of global products which are needed in overseas big companies;

4) A global commercialisation programme to support each project with €0.324m for co-commercialisation between domestic SMEs and excellent universities overseas.

The National Research Foundation (NRF, www.nrf.re.kr), on behalf of MEST, has managed two programmes which consist of several projects to improve international cooperation as follows:

Internationalisation of S&T which consists of international collaborative research such as global research laboratory (GRL), establishment of a base for internationalisation through global networking, attracting foreign research centre and so on;

Supporting MOU with foreign organisations which includes exchange information and researchers with foreign organisations through symposium, fellowship and postdoctoral programme,

In 2008, MEST introduced the World Class University programme which aims at promoting universities in Korea to research-oriented globally competitive ones through the attraction of a renowned top class foreign researcher as a full-time professors, and establishment of new departments in the area of convergence science and technology for the development of a new growth engine and nurturing globally excellent HRST. The programme continues until 2012 with a budget of €534.4m in total for five years.

http://www.kiat.or.kr/



49

The Korean government has also been making great efforts to expand international cooperation networks through various types of cooperation with UNESCO, OECD, ASEM and GBIF etc. Even though the Korean government has increased funds and the total amount of funds for international cooperation is still small and the results of joint research and cooperation have been unclear and still not significant. In 2010, the number of international co-patent per researcher is 0.000267; less than the average 0.000416 in OECD countries. The MKE and MOST have introduced many small programmes with insufficient cooperation between two Ministries. More government departments and local governments have also tried to introduce different small programmes with similar purposes. Such kinds of situations have resulted in a little bit ineffective efforts for international cooperation and cross-border knowledge flows.

4.5 OPENING UP OF NATIONAL R&D PROGRAMMES

A foreign researcher, individually or on a team basis, working for or employed by any research institutes in industry, academia and public research organisations in Korea, can be in charge of the management of a project selected by the NRF. In this case, it does not matter where (at home or abroad), the research activity is performed. The NRF has not managed any research programmes for foreign researchers, who are not employed by or who have no contracts with Korean research institutes of knowledge triangle, to be a project leader. In both cases, foreign researchers can participate in the project operated in the NRF, in which a Korean researcher is project leader, just as a member without any authority in management. There are some programmes in the NRF that allow foreign researchers to be sub-leaders (i.e. in charge of management of some part of main project such as Global Research Laboratory programme). The NRF has never had a project or programme managed by a foreign researcher who is not employed by any Korean research institute. Unlike the NRF, the KIAT has some programmes which are managed by foreign researchers, (who are resident abroad or employed by research institutes in their own country); on condition that Korean researchers in the knowledge triangle take part in the project. Such programmes are described in section 2.5.1 as four types of programmes that fund international collaborative joint research projects. There are some barriers and limits in opening up all national research programmes to foreign researchers (living abroad) to become project leaders through open competition; these include government policy rationale, national culture, taxation, IP issues and management principles.

4.6 RESEARCHER MOBILITY

4.6.1 Mobility schemes for researchers from abroad

As a means to attract human resources from both advanced countries and developing countries, the government is implementing full-fledged programmes, including World Class University (WCU) programme and international R&D human resources exchange programme.


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Support €146m in 2012: 55 programmes for establishing academic conference/society; 34 programmes for inviting individual scholars; and 90 programmes for inviting world-renowned scholars

Hold WCU-Nobel Forum on a regular basis;

Support GRIs (€10.4m in 2011): invite and utilise overseas researchers for expediting internationalisation of GRIs and strengthening their research capability; and

A counselling centre for foreign researchers residing in Korea will be open for improving their research as well as living environment.

In order to manage the inflow of overseas S&T human resources including doctoral students, the Korean government has also employed three visa incentive programmes (employment visa programmes - MEST: Science Card, MKE: Gold Card). The Ministry of Justice has introduced an on-line visa programme for high calibre overseas human resources; the Human Net KOREA programme. It has also announced the legislation of a new law, which grants the right of residence to those overseas human resources dwelling in Korea possessing high calibre and capability. In case of foreign doctoral students, universities and the GRIs have also opened the recruitment and grants system supported by the NRF. The research grants are not portable. These types of recruitment for foreign doctoral students are conducted usually through global networks of universities and the GRIs. Universities and the GRIs try to keep individual researchers and organisations in their global networks posted the information on the supporting system of the NRF or to ask them to propose directly to universities and the GRIs which have their own supporting system for foreign doctoral students.

4.6.2 Mobility schemes for national researches

Mobility schemes for national researches to move abroad have not been widely developed. Many policy experts and R&D institutes demand such kind of policy or institutions.


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5 CONCLUSIONS The former Lee’s government established new organisations to surmount the societal challenges the world faces such as climate change, energy and economic hardship. There are some prioritised areas to invest in such as green growth industry, high-tech convergence industry, and high value service industry and emphasis on the collaboration at all levels and stages. The new Park Geun-hue’s government has centralised the function into the MSIP giving strong authorities to deal with creating ecosystem of creative economy through science and technology and ICT. All of the GRIs under the KRCF which belonged to the MKE, and the ISTK which belonged to MEST were moved to the new MSIP. The NSTC which had centralised power to coordinate and allocate 80% of government R&D budget was also merged into the MSIP. In terms of GERD and BERD, Korea’s ratios are among the highest in the world. Several leading companies such as Samsung, LG, Hyundai Motors and the like, have become renowned and competitive transnational corporations with operations across the globe and leading-edge technologies. The number of papers and patents produced in research and innovation systems has rapidly increased to a world class level. The concerted efforts and capability to come up with new plans between many ministries has been strengthened. More and more national R&D projects are becoming of a more collaborative style between industry, university and the GRIs. The number of TLOs, Technoparks, regional clusters and university- and GRIs-companies for technology transfer and commercialisation has been significantly increasing. National R&D investments both by government and business enterprise sector have moved towards more public and welfare-oriented R&D to respond to social challenges, compared with five or ten years ago when they mainly focused on the development of industrial R&D. The various tax incentives and procurement system have been developed for facilitating the participation of SMEs. The Korean government has implemented many programmes to attract foreign scientists and students. The Park Geun-hye’s government has emphasised the importance of science and technology for the future economy and society. The role and function of the GRIs for creative economy and sustainable society has been emphasised and as of end of May, the GRIs have been formulating new programmes and governance with the MSIP. However, there are still barriers, weaknesses and problems. Despite the high level of research mobilisation for national R&D and concerted efforts made by many ministries for policy and programme planning, the efficiency and effectiveness of R&D investment and policy implementation are not pronounced high due to the excessive competition for project selection at the operational level, different interests between ministries and the weak role of a central body for coordination, and a still low level of institutional funding for the GRIs. In spite of the significantly increasing number of papers and patents, their quality is yet to be satisfactory because of the evaluation system focusing on the quantitative outputs, still weak capacity to conduct fundamental research both in universities and the GRIs, feeble collaboration for obtaining a government project, and the lack of knowledge circulation among industry, university and the GRIs and so on. As of end of May, the specific ways of GRIs’ contribution to the creative economy are still not clear and uncertain.


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The gap between SMEs and so called chaebol (Korean conglomerates) in terms of innovation is still high. This is because R&D investments of chaebol are designated to their own research institutes; talented human resources in science and technology (HRST) are reluctant to engage in SMEs; and technology transfer from universities and the public sector research organisations to SMEs are unsatisfactory. In spite of R&D globalisation, the total level of investment for internationalisation of S&T and global open innovation are very low. The number of foreign distinguished researchers is not enough. The main investment has usually gone to small projects’ base including still tiny participation in overseas R&D programmes and organisations, and to short term stay of foreign researchers.


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6 References KIPO (2011) Analysis of Patent Performance of National R&D programmes, January

2011, Korea Intellectual Property Office

KIIP (2010) the Statistics of Technology Transfer and Commercialisation, the Korean Institute for Intellectual Property

KISTEP (2009) The Survey on the Current Status of Science and Engineering

Manpower, Korea Institute of Science, Technology, Evaluation and Planning

KOITA (2011) Major Indicators of Industrial Technology, Korea Industrial Technology Association

MEST (2010a) Annual survey on national R&D activity, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology

MEST (2010b) the National Roadmap for NBIC Fusion Technology, September 2010, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology

MEST (2009) Guideline for management of a university division for industry-university collaboration, April 2009, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology

MOST (2011) The Second Plan to nurture the Human Resources in Science, Engineering and Technology, Ministry of Education, Science and Technology

NRF (2010) The Korea’s Performance of Papers in 2009, October 2009, National Research Foundation of Korea

NSTC(2010a) Amendment of the 3rd General Plan for Regional S&T Promotion, National Science and Technology Council, www.nstc.go.kr

NSTC (2010b) 2011 Implementation Plan of Lee Myung-bak administration’s S&T Basic Plan: 577 Initiatives, December, the National Science and Technology Council

NSTC (2010c) the National Large Facilities Roadmap, December 2010, the NSTC

NSTC (2010d) 2010 Plan for the Performance Management in National R&D, April 2010, the National Science and Technology Council

NSTC (2009) the Plan for advancement of collaboration between industry, universities and the public research organisations, September 2009, the MKE, MEST and the SMBA

NSTC (2008) the Basic Plan for the Development of National Fusion Technology, November 2008, the NSTC,

NSTC(2007a) The 3rd General Plan for Regional S&T Promotion, National Science and Technology Council, www.nstc.go.kr

OECD (2009a) OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: Korea, OECD

OECD (2009b) Education at a Glance 2009


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7 List of Abbreviations BERD Business Expenditures for Research and Development

CERN European Organisation for Nuclear Research

ERA European Research Area

COST European Cooperation in Science and Technology

ERA-NET European Research Area Network

ERP Fund European Recovery Programme Fund

ESA European Space Agency

ESFRI European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures

FP European Framework Programme for Research and Technology Development

EU European Union

EU-27 European Union including 27 Member States

FDI Foreign Direct Investments

FP Framework Programme

FP7 7th Framework Programme

GBAORD Government Budget Appropriations or Outlays on R&D

GDP Gross Domestic Product

GERD Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D

GOVERD Government Intramural Expenditure on R&D

GUF General University Funds

HEI Higher education institutions

HERD Higher Education Expenditure on R&D

HES Higher education sector

IP ISTK

KEIT

KETEP

KIAT

KISTEP

KRCF

Intellectual Property Korea Research Council for Industrial Science and Technology

Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology

Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning

Korea Institute for the Advancement of Technology

Korea Institute of S&T, Evaluation and Planning

Korea Research Council of Fundamental Science and Technology

MEST MKE

MOTIE

MOSF

MSIP

NRF

NSTC

PACST

PCGG

PROs

Ministry of Education, Science and Technology Ministry of Knowledge Economy

Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy

Ministry of Strategy and Finance

Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning

National Research Foundation

National Science and Technology Council

Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology

Presidential Committee on Green Growth

Public Research Organisations

OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

R&D Research and Development

RI Research Infrastructures

http://www.erp-fonds.at/

http://cordis.europa.eu/

http://cordis.europa.eu/


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RTDI Research Technological Development and Innovation

SF Structural Funds

SMEs Small and Medium Sized Enterprises

S&T Science and technology

VC Venture Capital

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