[Reporter’s Notebook] "A 2.5 Million Won Budget"... The Agony of Companies Crushed by R&D Cuts

Recently, a meeting held between the Korea Industrial Technology Association and the Ministry of Science and ICT’s Innovation Headquarters resembled a forum for voicing grievances about the research and development budget. They unanimously expressed that the significant budget cuts have caused enormous setbacks in preparing future growth engines. Many businesspeople attended the event specifically to voice their concerns. The controversy over the national research and development (R&D) budget cuts that emerged last year appears to have spread from academia to the industrial sector.

One businessperson said, "This year, the government research project budget has been reduced to 2.5 million won," adding, "At this level, it is almost impossible to complete the project." Another attendee stated, "We need to further ensure transparency in R&D evaluations to weed out zombie companies." Since companies are also a key part of R&D, they appealed for understanding of the difficulties faced on the ground.

The Ministry of Science and ICT organized the event to hear companies’ opinions on next year’s national R&D investment direction and R&D budget evaluation. Learning from last year’s experience, the government recently improved the R&D system and drafted the 2025 national R&D investment direction and standards (draft) to transition to leading-edge R&D. The government self-assesses this as a preview of significantly increasing investment in R&D that challenges firsts and bests. On the day, Ryu Gwang-jun, head of the Science and Technology Innovation Headquarters, stated, "We plan to support startups with innovative capabilities to compete in the global market and invest in small and medium enterprises that need innovation capabilities to build self-sustainability."

However, the expressions on the faces of company representatives showed more skepticism than expectation. While increasing the R&D budget again is important, they argued that a fair evaluation process to filter out zombie companies must come first. The businessperson who advocated for "transparency" cited the UK as an example. In the UK, evaluation committee members are disclosed, evaluation scores are made public, and even if a project is rejected, companies can supplement deficiencies and request re-evaluation. This was said to be a great help for companies pursuing R&D.

The name of the meeting that day was ‘R&D Miso Sympathy.’ It means that companies, as a key part of R&D, must empathize. National budgets funded by taxpayers are limited. Establishing fair criteria for supporting corporate R&D will enable ‘selection and concentration’ of budget support.

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