Experience of the Republic of Korea in the development of R&D: problems and prospects
Abstract. The Republic of Korea has come a long and difficult path in terms of innovations and can rightfully be proud of its success in the scientific field. At the same time, South Korea had to achieve essential results by making significant efforts, using administrative levers in the form of relevant ministries, departments, scientific funds, large-scale investments in R&D, paying close attention to training specialists, as well as transfer of technologies and scientific personnel from abroad, thereby it becomes more important to study its experience and challenges that the country has been facing at the present stage. The author of this article characterizes the scientific and technological policy of South Korea, analyzes the role of corporations in R&D, explores strengths and weaknesses of this policy. In the course of the study, the author used general theoretical methods: analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction. It is concluded that the further innovative development of the Republic of Korea largely depends on whether the country will be able to overcome difficulties in the shortest possible time, in particular, such as a shortage of highly qualified personnel, problems with attracting foreign specialists and training young specialists.
Keywords: R&D, the Republic of Korea, Samsung, science and technology clusters, global innovation index, Internet of Things, cloud-based computing, Big Data
Highlights:
♦ the main advantage of the R&D policy of the Republic of Korea is large-scale financing of innovative projects not only by the state, but also thanks to the financial investments of the South Korean business;
♦ the policy of technology transfer and borrowing the experience of leading innovative countries served as a basis for the further growth of the scientific and technical sphere in the Republic of Korea, but at the same time increased its dependence on license holders, in particular, this was most clearly manifested in the nuclear sector;
♦ the ill-conceived policy of the Republic of Korea on the training of specialists, retention of national and attraction of foreign experts led to negative consequences that affect and will continue to have the most negative impact on the development of R&D in the country.
Viktoria G. Samsonova - Institute of China and Contemporary Asia of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia