Price of Contribution: From Science and Technology to ‘National’ Science and Technology

Along with universities and private(corporate) laboratories, government-funded research institutes are a pillar of the national research system. They are funded by the government, but have a unique form of research independence and autonomy. Research councils are governing bodies that emerged in the late 1990s to manage and foster the efficient operation of government-funded research institutes, and they have been in existence for almost 25 years. It is interesting to note that since the introduction of the research council system, there has been an assessment that the research councils are not functioning as they should, and each government since Kim Dae-jung’s government, which introduced the research council system, has sought to reform the research councils and government-funded research institutes through new policies. During this period, research institutes in the field of science and technology and research institutes in the field of humanities, and social science took different paths. In order to drive national development through science and technology, the government sought to lead science and technology policy and strongly manage government-funded research institutes through the science and technology research councils. In the case of science and technology research councils, the government was torn between “national research” to support national tasks and comprehensive national strategies for the country as a whole. This article examines the characteristics of the Korean national research system, focusing on the history of research councils in the field of science and technology, with a particular attention to 2004 as the historical origin of this division.