"Consumable Expenses Also to Be Covered by Research Funds"... Will Graduate Students' 'Exploitation' Lab Fees Disappear?

Government Finalizes Improvements to National R&D Administrative System, Mandates Industrial Accident Insurance for Student Researchers
Reducing Administrative Burden and Research Misconduct, Promoting Leading Research and Efficient Execution

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[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] #1. Graduate student A in the Seoul metropolitan area participated in a government-funded research and development (R&D) project in a professor’s lab but received almost no wages, causing dissatisfaction. Upon joining the lab, A had to pay monthly wages as 'lab fees' to the professor. A expressed frustration, saying, "Why should I give the rightful compensation I earn from my work to the professor?"

#2. Professors also have their complaints. It is due to ambiguous regulations on government research fund expenditures. Professors are responsible for costs not specified in the 'regulations' but necessary, such as dinner expenses, wages for students who joined mid-project, and travel expenses. However, they cannot endlessly use personal funds, and if they collect 'lab fees' and use them, they risk being accused of research fund misconduct, leading to trouble.

In response to this reality, the government has launched a major institutional reform to reduce administrative burdens on frontline researchers, encourage bold pioneering research, eliminate research misconduct, and efficiently manage research funds.

The National Science and Technology Advisory Council’s deliberation meeting finalized the '2021 National Research and Development Administrative System Improvement Plan' on the 31st of last month. This plan will be reflected in the upcoming revision of the Enforcement Decree of the National Research and Development Innovation Act and implemented accordingly.

First, to improve researchers’ difficulties, autonomy will be expanded to allow institutions to set the format of research notes independently. If it is difficult to use indirect costs for expenses related to publications such as article processing charges after project completion, direct cost expenditure will be permitted up to two years after project completion. Students from other universities will also be included in the student wage budget, and in the humanities and social sciences fields, considering the scale of research funds, bachelor’s and master’s level researchers will also be eligible for student wage budget items.

The execution of consumable expenses, which had become a pretext for university professors to recover student researchers’ wages under the so-called 'lab fees' and misuse funds, will also be made more realistic. To eliminate the justification for wage recovery, since 2019, ‘consumable expenses necessary for research fund operation’ have been allowed to be spent, but in practice, the detailed uses of consumable expenses that can be spent were not defined, rendering it ineffective. The meeting decided to specify detailed uses of consumable expenses that can be spent with research funds to facilitate execution in the field. Similarly, for the research fund pre-expenditure system and intellectual property rights waiver procedures, which had grounds but lacked detailed regulations or procedures making them difficult to use in practice, detailed procedures will be established.

Additionally, to encourage pioneering research and development, a basis will be established to allow early termination of projects lacking competitiveness so that national R&D capabilities can be concentrated on highly competitive projects, and guidelines for competitive research and development funds will be prepared. To support international joint research, which is increasingly emphasized in global technology competition, the expenditure of ‘international joint research funds,’ previously allowed only in basic projects of government-funded research institutes, will be permitted in all national R&D projects, and agreements will be required.

The responsibility for classifying security projects will be centralized to specialized institutions for systematization, and to actively utilize cloud computing services, related costs will be newly included as allowable research fund expenditures.

To improve the quality of the research environment and the rights of early-career researchers, postdoctoral researchers will be allowed to receive wages even outside the project period. From next year, to mandate industrial accident insurance enrollment for student researchers, grounds for expenditure from indirect costs will be established. For minor research misconduct such as simple mistakes, improvements will be considered to prevent excessive participation restrictions.

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