People Power Party's Park Jun: "Gyeongnam Province and Education Office Did Not Properly Manage Research Service"

42% of Gyeongnam Province Unpublished, 92% of Provincial Office of Education Contracts Awarded Without Bidding

People Power Party lawmaker Park Jun is pouring criticism on the management practices of research projects by Gyeongsangnam-do and the provincial Office of Education.
[Image source=Gyeongnam Provincial Council]

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Lee Seryeong] Gyeongsangnam-do and the Gyeongnam Office of Education were criticized on the 13th by the Gyeongnam Provincial Council for not properly managing research projects that serve as the basis for major policy decisions.

Park Jun, a member of the People Power Party, stated during the 398th regular session of the Provincial Council's provincial administration questioning, “A full survey of research projects commissioned by Gyeongsangnam-do, its invested and funded institutions, and the Office of Education from 2019 to early August this year revealed practices of nondisclosure, a high rate of private contracts, and suspected cases of research misconduct.”

Table showing whether the research service by Gyeongnam Provincial Government has been disclosed. [Image source=Gyeongnam Provincial Council]

Park explained that Gyeongsangnam-do did not disclose the results of 4 or more projects, accounting for 42% of the total 10 projects, and nearly 40% of the projects were conducted through private contracts.

He added that one of the province’s invested and funded institutions did not disclose the results of all 35 projects, 33 projects had research periods of less than two months, and 13 projects were conducted by the same company more than twice.

Park criticized, “About 40.07 million won was spent on a one-month project. In situations where subcontracting occurs in research projects similar to construction subcontracting?where the contracted company awards about 50% of the low-priced subcontract research fee to the performing company?it is impossible to conduct high-quality research.”

Table showing the ratio of private contracts for research services by the Gyeongnam Office of Education. [Image source=Gyeongnam Provincial Council]

He further revealed that the Office of Education conducted 72 out of 78 projects (92%) through private contracts, and among these, 27 projects were awarded to companies outside the Gyeongnam region.

It was also reported that in cases where plagiarism rates were 32% and 33%, parts of the original text were copied verbatim multiple times in paragraphs.

Park stated, “If there is research misconduct that damages research ethics and wastes taxpayers’ money by using tricks such as having the same conclusions and recommendations as other studies or changing bullet points into narrative sentences, strong sanctions are necessary. Public officials must not overlook this and manage research projects blindly.”

He also criticized, “Contracts like construction and government-supplied materials are operated so strictly that local companies are excluded and are subject to regular audits, but research projects remain a blind spot. Policy failures based on expensive, superficial, and shoddy research projects lead to enormous financial waste, and the practice of nondisclosure of research results is not unrelated to the integrity of Gyeongsangnam-do.”

In response to Park’s criticism, Gyeongsangnam-do replied that it will closely examine the research project sector during the audit scheduled for November.

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