Government: "R&D Under 100 Billion Won to Proceed Without Preliminary Feasibility Study"... What About Over 100 Billion Won?

Final Decision to Abolish Preliminary Feasibility Study... Law Must Pass
Project Start Expected to Advance by 2 Years
Ongoing Monitoring and Management of Project Soundness Planned

The government has decided to proceed with new research and development (R&D) projects under 100 billion KRW without preliminary feasibility studies (PFS), instead advancing them through the regular budget allocation process.

On the 4th, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that the 8th National Science and Technology Advisory Council had finalized the 'Innovation Plan for Investment and Management System of Large-scale National R&D Projects' containing this policy.

The PFS system was introduced in 1999 to verify preliminary feasibility before large-scale national financial investments. The R&D sector has been subject to PFS since 2008, and passing a PFS typically took more than three years on average.

Due to the gap between the rapid and challenging nature required in R&D and the PFS system, the research community has continuously called for improvements to the PFS system.

Following researchers' proposal to abolish PFS at the full meeting of the National Science and Technology Advisory Council in April, the National Fiscal Strategy Meeting last month confirmed the policy to abolish PFS in the R&D sector.

Looking at the detailed measures reflected this time, first, all new R&D projects under 100 billion KRW will be promoted through the regular budget allocation process. In this case, the initiation of new projects sized between 50 billion and 100 billion KRW is expected to be shortened by about two years compared to before.

For research-type R&D projects such as basic and fundamental research or international joint research exceeding 100 billion KRW, project implementation plans will be submitted in advance by October of the year before the budget request, and expert reviews will be conducted. This will be pursued not as a pass/fail decision like the existing PFS system but to enhance the completeness of project planning.

The review results will be notified to each ministry by March of the following year, and each ministry will supplement their planning based on this to request the next year's budget.

Each ministry will be allowed to autonomously adjust all R&D projects by the end of April within expenditure limits according to ministry priorities when requesting budgets, thereby improving fiscal soundness and strengthening each ministry's accountability.

Additionally, the Innovation Headquarters and the Ministry of Economy and Finance will continuously monitor and manage project execution soundness during the annual budget review stages. Projects found problematic during this process will be reviewed for continuation and appropriate scale through specific evaluations, and problematic projects will be terminated, thereby strengthening post-management.

Minister Lee Jong-ho of the Ministry of Science and ICT stated, “For this R&D PFS abolition to be practically applied, amendments to the National Finance Act must precede it,” and requested “bipartisan support from the National Assembly to ensure we do not fall behind in global technological competition.”

He added, “Until the law is amended, we will expedite progress by shortening the fast track compared to the existing PFS and expanding the exemption scope for innovative and challenging R&D projects.”

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