Regional Distribution of Government-sponsored Research Institutes in Science & Technology

이공계 정부출연연구기관의 지방이전방안

Korea's government-sponsored research institutes (GRIs) have contributed a lot to the economic development of Korea. They have become major components of the Korean national innovation system. However, in these days, they have been blamed for low productivity and inefficiency, as well as insufficient contribution to national development. This paper argues that the major problem of Korea's GRIs lies in their concentration in a few regions, e. g. Seoul, Gyeonggi, and Daedeok. It argues that they should be fairly distributed among regions in order to contribute to the development of Korea effectively. In this regard, this paper explores the relevant policy options to effectively distribute Korean GRIs among regions. It suggests two categories of distribution scenarios. The first category is based on the types of GRIs to be distributed. This category has three scenarios: existing GRIs, branch institutes of existing GRIs, and new GRIs. The second category is based on the jurisdiction of GRIs. It has also three scenarios: GRI system as an independent sector, GRI-university cooperation system, and integration of GRIs to regional universities. These scenarios have advantages and disadvantages, respectively. Therefore, we must find a rather satisfactory scenario based on the mixture of scenarios of both categories.