Government and Ruling Party "Reforming the National Research and Development Cartel"

Held Party-Government Council on the 16th to Actively Prepare Measures

The government and the ruling party have decided to actively prepare measures to improve the inefficiency of research and development (R&D) budgets funded by the national treasury.

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On the 16th, the Ministry of Science and ICT held a working-level party-government consultation meeting with the People Power Party and announced that they discussed the 'Government R&D Inefficiency Reform Measures.' The party and government agreed to diagnose the inefficiency factors of government R&D and prepare institutional improvement plans to reform them.

First, the government and ruling party diagnosed that side effects and inefficiencies occurred during the rapid increase of the R&D budget under the previous administration. The major causes of inefficiency were the significant increase in short-term issue response projects such as the semiconductor materials, parts, and equipment (SoBuJang) crisis with Japan and infectious diseases, as well as projects distributed to small and medium-sized enterprises, which have continued like vested interests. In fact, the national R&D budget doubled from KRW 10 trillion to KRW 20 trillion over 11 years from 2008 to 2019, while it rapidly increased from KRW 20 trillion to KRW 30 trillion between 2019 and 2023 in just 4 years.

Additionally, the number of R&D projects and tasks also increased significantly, leading to management gaps and blind spots. In other words, inefficiencies and cartel-like elements emerged in ▲R&D with predetermined recipients, ▲R&D in the form of corporate subsidies, and ▲distribution-style projects obtained without competition. This acted as a hindrance to moving towards challenging and innovative R&D based on competition and cooperation in the research field.

The party and government agreed to boldly restructure subsidy-type and distribution-style projects to eradicate inefficiencies throughout R&D and to implement institutional innovations to prevent such projects from taking root again in the future. In particular, they decided to inspect whether inefficiencies occurred during the budget expansion process for 25 government-funded research institutes in the science and technology fields and to introduce a competitive system to transform them into national mission-oriented specialized research institutes and to help them become world-class research institutions. They agreed on creating an environment where research teams can engage in open competition and cooperation beyond institutional barriers to focus on national and global research. On the other hand, they also agreed to expand investments in R&D aiming for world-class standards and talented researchers and to devise plans to activate joint research with countries sharing global values, moving away from isolated R&D.

Minister Lee Jong-ho said, “The R&D budget of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration should be R&D that is not confined by silos and vested interests or isolated research but true R&D,” adding, “We will raise the level of our R&D through research aiming for world-class standards, research competing by capability, and joint research with countries sharing values beyond Korea’s borders.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Science and ICT plans to prepare institutional improvement measures within this month and announce the 2024 national R&D project budget allocation and adjustment plan reflecting these measures.

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