"Lack of Government Support"?... The 'Excuse' for Not Winning a Nobel Prize No Longer Works [Reading Science]

Basic Science Funding Increased 2.5 Times in 10 Years
Annual Increase of Around 300 Billion KRW Since Moon Jae-in Administration
Total 2.55 Trillion KRW This Year, Significantly Up from 980 Billion KRW in 2012
President Moon Keeps Promise of Over 2 Trillion KRW Budget for 'Basic Science Promotion'

▲Typical Nobel Prize medal (left) and Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences medal (right). Photo by Nobel Foundation

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] "It's because basic science is weak." This is a common remark in the Korean scientific community every year after the announcement of Nobel Prize winners. The reflection is that due to insufficient government support and the struggle to make a living, researchers have not been able to engage in creative and bold research mainly in the basic science fields where winners usually emerge. In fact, although successive governments have promised to foster basic science, they have not properly implemented it due to practical constraints such as financial conditions. However, the situation has changed. The basic science development budget, which was around 1 trillion won during the Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye administrations, has increased more than 2.5 times during the Moon Jae-in administration, reaching the mid-2 trillion won range. Of course, even if it does not satisfy all demands, at least Korean scientists will no longer be able to use 'lack of government support' as an excuse going forward.

According to the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 3rd, this year’s basic science research and development (R&D) budget of the Ministry of Science and ICT increased by 11.8% from 1.79 trillion won last year to 2.0136 trillion won, surpassing 2 trillion won for the first time ever. Including the budget executed by the Ministry of Education (about 540 billion won), the total government basic research R&D budget this year reaches 2.55 trillion won.

This scale of basic research support budget is more than double compared to 2012. Until 2012, during the Lee Myung-bak administration, the total basic research budget was only 989.7 billion won (Ministry of Science and ICT 655.3 billion won, Ministry of Education 334.4 billion won), which was less than 1 trillion won. Afterward, under the Park Geun-hye administration, it increased slightly every year but remained in the low 1 trillion won range, such as 1.2697 trillion won in 2017 (Ministry of Science and ICT 882.2 billion won, Ministry of Education 387.5 billion won).

After the May 2017 presidential election, when then Democratic Party candidate Moon Jae-in pledged to expand the support budget for fostering basic science and was elected, the budget began to increase rapidly. President Moon selected securing a 2 trillion won-level basic science research budget during his term as a major national agenda and actively promoted it, increasing the budget by about 300 billion won annually. As a result, the budget surged every year: 1.4243 trillion won in 2018 (Ministry of Science and ICT 971.8 billion won, Ministry of Education 452.5 billion won), 1.7105 trillion won in 2019 (Ministry of Science and ICT 1.2006 trillion won, Ministry of Education 509.9 billion won), 2.002 trillion won in 2020 (Ministry of Science and ICT 1.4997 trillion won, Ministry of Education 502.3 billion won), and 2.3484 trillion won last year (Ministry of Science and ICT 1.7907 trillion won, Ministry of Education 557.7 billion won).

This budget is used for individual basic research, group research support, and building basic research infrastructure. It is mainly spent on 'researcher-led basic research projects' where scientists autonomously set research topics and scopes in basic science fields such as mathematics, chemistry, physics, and earth sciences. In particular, the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to use the increased basic research budget this year to expand regional collaboration and industry-academia-research cooperation support in strategic technology fields. Notably, from this year, the tailored support for research institutions, research funds, new and convergence research, which had been limited to mathematics, physics, chemistry, earth sciences, life sciences, and basic medicine until last year, will be expanded to all fields.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced detailed plans on the same day to invest 6.4227 trillion won in science and technology and ICT research and development (R&D) support this year. This includes 5.0491 trillion won for science and technology and 1.3736 trillion won for ICT. This is about an 11.6% increase compared to 5.7511 trillion won last year. The figure excludes research operation expenses of the National Research Council of Science & Technology and affiliated institutions from the total Ministry of Science and ICT R&D budget of 9.5647 trillion won. Specifically, it includes basic research (about 2.01 trillion won), source technology research (about 3 trillion won), performance utilization and commercialization (365.4 billion won), human resource development (299.1 billion won), and infrastructure establishment (459.7 billion won).

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