The country has been increasing research funding for decades, but its rigid, time-bound approach to research assessment is stifling basic science.
At the end of the Korean war in 1953, South Korea faced the twin challenges of reconstructing its devastated cities and modernizing its mostly agrarian economy. It bet on becoming a fast, nimble developer of already-profitable technologies. Industrial infrastructure – including construction of highways, and light-water nuclear reactors that produced cheap electricity — brought remarkably rapid economic growth in the 1970s and 1980s.
The time is ripe for South Korea to reconsider its strategies for advancing its basic science. Last month, the country inaugurated a new president, Yoon Suk-yeol. As a political scientist specializing in science policy, I have joined with others to advise the new government on how to redraw its portfolio of research and development funding in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, global supply-chain disruption and other issues related to science and technology.
Second, it is not only the size of grants that matters for basic science, but the stability of funding. To pursue innovation, scientists need time as much as money, yet most funding programmes for individual researchers in South Korea run for just one to three years — not long enough to bring a risky project to fruition. In the past year, I have interviewed researchers about how the doubling of basic research funding under Moon has affected them.
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