In South Korea, 10th March 2017 was a remarkable day for justice. President Park Geun-hye was impeached from power after being convicted in million dollar frauds. Science policymakers rejoiced along with many people on the street.
Following her impeachment, South Korea government is now implementing many reforms in its policies so as to include people’s viewpoint in science policy framework. The focus is now slowly shifting from applied sciences to basic sciences, and researchers are glad about this change in science policy.
Although the current administration has not yet rolled out an official change in science policy, researchers are making concerted efforts in putting across their views. At the Institute of Basic Science (IBS), the President stated that government would increase resource allocation to basic sciences.
South Korea scientists have strongly propagated that basic science should be encouraged to be at par with other scientifically advanced nations. To substantiate their viewpoint, they have cited a recent scientific event: Google’s DeepMind developed AlphaGo, an artificial intelligence program in London; this program superseded world-famous grandmaster Lee Sedol at an exhibition match of Go, the ancient board game.
With this shocking loss, South Koreans became wary of technological progress made by other countries in artificial intelligence and machine learning. These innovative “smart” technologies are going drive the fourth industrial revolution in the world.
At this juncture, erstwhile President Park announced that it would launch an ambitious project on artificial intelligence worth 860 million USD in partnership with other Korean conglomerates: Samsung, LG, Hyundai, and Naver (The Korean internet giant). However, many scientists were of the view that this would not be beneficial for innovation incubation in South Korea as the government merely proposed to further develop a technology that originated elsewhere.
According to the President of the Institute of Basic Science, the fourth industrial would be driven by basic science: mathematics, algorithms, and computer science.
In terms of science resources, South Korea is among the top countries of the world as the government allocates about 4% of its GDP for research and development. However, the science policy framework supports applied research to a large extent since 1960s.
In other words, federal grants are easily available to research institutes that have industrial partners. At the same time, institutes of basic science were given second class treatment and received a humble pie of the total funds.
Sang-Mook Lee, a noted geophysicist worked at Seoul National University and regularly criticized the erstwhile government headed by Park Geun-hye for its corrupt practices in science expenditure.
Lee gave testimony in 2014 to the parliament and stated that research ships manufactured by South Korea should be used for basic science and not for digging minerals from deep sea. Lee exhorted the erstwhile Park government to recall the promises they made to the public of Korea on science and technology.
The lady President had promised to increase the government’s resource allocation to basic science from the 35.2% in 2012 to 40% in 2017. Moreover, she had promised to create a separate science department for nurturing start-ups and technological innovation. However, the government only paid lip service to basic science and invested all resources in applied research.
Without depending much on government funding, South Korean scientists are now trying to engage resources on their own for basic sciences. For example, a crowdfunding project launched in South Korea was able to garner 15 million won (13,300 USD); this main objective of this project was to understand health issues of transgender community in South Korea. This project received much more than required, almost double the amount. This is a trend in itself given that projects with minimal economic viability do not really get sufficient funding.
The funding platform was launched by ESL (Engineers and Scientists for Change). Crowdfunding is launched by this organization for projects aimed at social progress and sustainability. This group has planned channels to gain funding in such a way that they are bound to powerful corporates or political parties.
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