South Korea, a science spending champion, proposes cutbacks

South Korea’s government surprised many of the nation’s scientists last month when it abruptly proposed cutting research spending by 10.9% in 2024 and shifting resources into a number of new initiatives, including efforts to build rockets, pursue high-risk biomedical research, and build a U.S.-style biotech innovation ecosystem similar to the one that has grown up around Boston.

Officials said the dramatic restructuring—which could end a decadeslong surge in science spending that has helped make South Korea a global research force—was needed to help tame growing budget deficits and to focus resources on the most productive fields. One goal, the science ministry said, is to create “innovative global top strategic research groups that can generate groundbreaking results.”

Many researchers, however, are anxious about the plan, which the National Assembly is expected to approve by December. They say key budget details remain murky and that President Yoon Suk Yeol’s administration has made little effort to consult with researchers. “Without any discussions with scientists, they just suddenly changed the whole [funding] system,” says Ji-Joon Song, a structural biologist at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). “This is what makes scientists really upset, not just cutting the budget.”

South Korea’s government surprised many of the nation’s scientists last month when it abruptly proposed cutting research spending by 10.9% in 2024 and shifting resources into a number of new initiatives, including efforts to build rockets, pursue high-risk biomedical research, and build a U.S.-style biotech innovation ecosystem similar to the one that has grown up around Boston.

Officials said the dramatic restructuring—which could end a decadeslong surge in science spending that has helped make South Korea a global research force—was needed to help tame growing budget deficits and to focus resources on the most productive fields. One goal, the science ministry said, is to create “innovative global top strategic research groups that can generate groundbreaking results.”

Many researchers, however, are anxious about the plan, which the National Assembly is expected to approve by December. They say key budget details remain murky and that President Yoon Suk Yeol’s administration has made little effort to consult with researchers. “Without any discussions with scientists, they just suddenly changed the whole [funding] system,” says Ji-Joon Song, a structural biologist at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). “This is what makes scientists really upset, not just cutting the budget.”

Yoon apparently was referring to programs that give grants to institutes, small firms, and some academics without competitive review or much governmental control. Whether these groups are cartels “is quite debatable,” Kim says.

On 28 August, South Korea’s State Council adopted the hastily revamped budget. It includes 25.9 trillion won ($19.5 billion) for science and engineering, according to the science ministry, and boosts spending for areas including artificial intelligence, semiconductors, and space launch technologies. But funding for basic research drops by 6.2%, and funding for national research institutes, including KAIST and the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), drops by 9.4%.

One big question is whether the institutes—which conduct most of the nation’s basic science—will have a say in allocating cuts. IBS said it was “inappropriate to answer [such] questions” while legislators are still reviewing the budget proposal. Song, who helps lead Basic Research United, which represents 30 science groups, fears some younger researchers will be hit hard by the revamp. For example, one program facing termination provides annual grants of about 70 million won to virtually all academic researchers. The grants allow early-career researchers and those at local universities to establish track records so they can eventually qualify for more competitive awards, says molecular biologist Jung-Shin Lee of Kangwon National University. Ending the program, Lee says, “will ultimately have an adverse impact” on the whole research sector.

Students are already taking note, says Dongheon Lee, an engineering Ph.D. candidate at KAIST who leads the school’s graduate student association. There is “a growing perception that [science and engineering] careers are less stable and less lucrative than [those in] other fields,” Lee says. His group and five others have asked the government to reconsider the cuts.

South Korea’s health ministry, meanwhile, announced two ambitious initiatives. One is a “Korean version” of the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, which seeks to fund high-risk, high-reward biomedical studies. The plan calls for it to get 1.8 trillion won over
10 years, depending on future appropriations. The new agency aims to reverse the “not so impressive” outcomes of South Korea’s biomedical research, and to embrace “a tolerance of failure and the ability to recover from failure,” says Kyung Sun, a former surgeon and adviser at Kyung Hee University who has promoted the idea. Priority targets include accelerating vaccine development and reducing cancer rates.

The second initiative, called the Boston-Korea project, would get 60.5 billion won in 2024 to forge links between Korean and Boston-area research institutions. On a visit to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in April, Yoon said Boston’s biotech clusters could serve as a model for South Korea. Song, who was a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, endorses the goal. But, “We cannot make a huge biotech cluster out of the blue in a short amount of time,” he cautions. “We need a long-term plan.”