Over 5 Years of Moon Administration, R&D Budget Increased by 10 Trillion Won…Ruling Party Calls for Bold Restructuring of "Spreading Projects"

Party and Government Hold Practical Council to Reform R&D Inefficiency
"Once Increased, Budget Acts Like a Vested Interest"
Ministry of Science and ICT to Announce Budget Allocation and Adjustment Plan by End of This Month

The People Power Party and the government agreed on the 16th to carry out a rigorous restructuring of the R&D (Research and Development) budget. Based on the consultation held that day, the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to announce institutional improvement measures and the allocation and adjustment plan for next year’s R&D budget as early as the end of this month.

Park Seong-jung, the senior member of the National Assembly’s Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee from the People Power Party, held a working-level party-government consultation meeting at the National Assembly Members’ Office Building to eliminate inefficiencies in government R&D. He stated, “During the Moon Jae-in administration, side effects and inefficiencies occurred amid the indiscriminate increase of the R&D budget.”

On the 22nd, at the Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee plenary meeting held at the National Assembly, Park Seong-jung, the ruling party's secretary, is conducting the meeting on behalf of Chairman Jang Je-won, while ruling party members are absent. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

According to Rep. Park, it took 11 years from 2008 to 2019 for the R&D projects to increase by 1 trillion won, but during the last administration alone, the budget increased by 1 trillion won. Accordingly, the number of R&D projects rose significantly from about 700 in 2019 to about 1,200 this year, and the number of tasks increased to approximately 75,000.

Rep. Park said, “Short-term issue response R&D projects and R&D projects distributed to small and medium-sized enterprises have surged,” adding, “Once increased, the budget acts like vested interests and continues, causing inefficiencies.”

He continued, “Although it is formally a public contest, there are harmful effects such as project planning with predetermined owners and R&D projects distributed to small and medium-sized enterprises lacking research capabilities,” emphasizing, “We will boldly restructure vested-interest projects of specific groups, simple subsidy-type support projects lacking competitiveness, projects with significantly low competition rates, and indiscriminately distributed projects.”

There are also plans to consolidate and integrate R&D-related projects scattered across 40 ministries. Rep. Park said, “While instituting systemic innovations to prevent cartel-like projects from taking root, we will also carry out rigorous reforms and system efficiency improvements for research and development specialized institutions that have revealed limitations and inefficiencies in R&D management capabilities.”

Minister Lee Jong-ho of the Ministry of Science and ICT, who attended the meeting, said, “Science and technology are the most important driving forces shaping the future of the Republic of Korea,” adding, “We will closely examine whether the R&D budget, which is precious taxpayers’ money, is being properly invested for the future of Korea.”

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