On October 10, Gilhwa Kang from the Saenuri Party set forth three different initiatives regarding the amendment of the following legislations: the Framework Act of Science and Technology (Law 12673, FAST) (unofficial Romanization, UR), the Act of Technology Transfer (Law 12284, ATT, UR), and the Act of Public Institution Operation (Law 12673, APIO, UR). The main purpose of all the bills put forth is to improve the effectiveness of collaborative efforts between the government and public research institutes (PRI) in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Bill 1912025: Partial Amendment to FAST

FAST is a legislation that underlies all laws regarding the fields of STEM; in the unchanged version, the article on managing national R&D (research and development) dictates that personnel related to the specific business be excluded from the party examining the business’ importance in light of national R&D. The bill states that for the sake of impartiality and confidentiality of national R&D the reasons for such exclusion need be stated directly under the act and means to substantiate the basis for supporting the protection of R&D results and preventing technology leakages, and promoting the sectors under the Agreement of Collaborative Research of IAR (Industry, Academia, and Research) (UR). The addition of Article 11 Clause 5, Article 16 Clause 3, and Article 16 Clause 3, 4 is proposed.

Bill 1912022: Partial Amendment to ATT

In ATT, it is stated that PRI require a separate organization for the exclusive purpose of technology transfer and commercialization (TTC). Although the organization is required to have more than one member for the exclusive purpose, of the 172 said organizations, very few are allotted with the abovementioned personnel that have professional knowledge in TTC, therefore not effectively executing the purpose of the act. Thus, the bill calls for the need of professionals in TTC within the organizations and the qualifications to be defined (under Article 11).

Bill 1912023: Partial Amendment to APIO

This bill deals with the treatment of government delegacy to government associated research facilities in STEM fields. Although ATT is a general legislation regarding all public institutes, the bill aims to the address the government official’s tendency to avoid delegacy referring to the compensation of absence and the difficulty the institutes faces in employing the necessary task force while complying to both the delegacy and personnel number limitation also imposed by the government. The bill calls for the separate accounting of delegacy members and personnel to avoid this dilemma (addition of Article 54-2) and appropriate reward for delegacy to promote the effectiveness in collaboration between the government and national research institutes.

General Remark

The bills have yet to be passed, but from their nature we may induce that there is an increase in national effort to heighten the effectiveness in national R&D. This is a problem that was addressed in the research report by the Korea Research Foundation on the government’s policies for supporting basic sciences: despite the national subsidy taking a large portion of the national budget (compared to other nations), the total output of national R&D is low due to the inefficiency of fund allocation. From bills 1912022 and 1912023, the increased professionalism of the delegacy and associates is expected to also make the national assessment on R&D fund allocation more efficient, which could also translate to higher intervention of research direction. In light of the national effort to promote national STEM competency, we may expect in the future additional bills addressing FAST to also correct the potential askew of research direction away from the more directly profitable towards the more fundamental topics.