Assemblyman Yongbin Lee: "Institute for Basic Science Research Group Leaders Have Become Hotbeds of Corruption"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] There are criticisms that the research group leaders at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have not been able to shake off the stigma of being a ‘hotbed of corruption,’ as they have been embezzling and misappropriating research funds, diverting patents for years, and assigning research personnel to private matters.

According to the National Assembly audit data submitted by Rep. Lee Yong-bin (Democratic Party of Korea, Gwangju Gwangsan-gap) from the Institute for Basic Science on the 20th, IBS has disciplined a total of 16 cases from 2016 to recently.

Among these, it was found that corruption involving research group leaders has been continuously occurring.

The Institute for Basic Science is the only basic science research institution in Korea that executes an annual budget of around 600 billion KRW and operates a total of 31 research groups.

Since 2015 until recently, audit results revealed a total of 21 points of misconduct committed by research group leaders.

Of these, 15 cases have been completed, and 6 are still ongoing. Among them, three research group leaders were reported to the prosecution and retired from their research groups due to dismissal or removal, and two were suspended from their positions for three months but have since returned.

The details of their misconduct include diverting patents, gift certificate fraud, and false estimates, through which they embezzled research funds amounting to hundreds of millions of won or illegally supported personnel and research expenses.

One research group leader, who was also a university professor, illegally dispatched researchers to support his son’s postdoctoral course at the same university by abusing his position. Furthermore, when recruitment corruption was detected, some fled overseas, indicating the severity of the research group leaders’ corruption.

Rep. Lee explained that the continuous corruption among research group leaders is due to the internal monitoring and reporting systems not functioning properly.

As research group leaders represent their groups and exercise virtually full authority over personnel composition, operation, management, research fund planning, allocation, execution, and management, it is structurally difficult to detect or report corruption.

Although corruption by research group leaders has been ongoing for years, the IBS disciplinary committee still applies disciplinary measures arbitrarily without objective standards, such as reducing disciplinary demands to warnings for research group leaders recommended for discipline based on audit results.

Moreover, the committee has been passive in eradicating corruption through prosecution referrals, which is criticized for condoning further corruption by the group leaders.

In particular, Group Leader A, who was suspended from duty for three months due to corruption, was reinstated as a research group leader, and Group Leader B returned to work as a senior researcher in the same research group, drawing criticism for ‘protecting their own’ with lenient punishments. Those who retired due to corruption are still active as university professors, revealing serious problems in research ethics.

Rep. Lee Yong-bin said, “Since research corruption, patent diversion, and recruitment corruption are not trivial matters, stricter standards should be applied to high-ranking officials,” and added, “IBS must strengthen disciplinary standards to prevent further corruption and conduct a full investigation of all 31 research groups to initiate organizational reform.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.