Since the advent of the Park administration, “changjo gyeongje,” officially translated “creative economy,” has been the loftiest catchphrase applied to government programs, with all conceptual complexity and ambiguity.

The simplest explanation from its author, President Park Geun-hye, is that it embraces all kinds of creative endeavors, industrial and academic, to prepare for the nation’s and mankind’s future. 

So we have the Ministry of Science, Information and Communications Technology and Future Planning as the signature agency of the Park administration. What is strange about the ministry’s official English title is that the seven nouns do not include “creative,” which is the key word in its original Korean version. Not only the Science Ministry but all other ministries liberally used this “creative economy” theme in their short- and long-term plans reported to the president on her first round of inspection.

The sudden emphasis on creativeness invited complaints from politicians, who are still unsure of its meaning more than two months after it was first used. Complainants also include Buddhist clergy members who, according to Jogye Order Administration Chief Jaseung, are uncomfortable hearing so much about “creation,” which Christians attribute to their god.

During the preceding Lee administration, we heard a lot of “green growth” as it struggled to recover from the financial crisis. A dozen or so “growth engines” were chosen to lead sustainable development through cooperation between the government and the private sector. The online electric vehicle (OLEV) and Mobile Harbor projects started by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology were some of the more prominent pilot projects in this green growth campaign.

Both projects were the brainchild of Suh Nam-pyo, who has now returned to Boston, Massachusetts, after rather stormy six years as KAIST president on a leave of absence from MIT. President Lee Myung-bak was personally briefed by Suh on the ideas of an electric vehicle recharged wirelessly while running on the road and a container barge equipped with automatically stabilized cranes to ply through congested harbors.

Impressed by the technological vision of the U.S.-trained mechanical engineer, who has over 60 patents in his name, Lee arranged the release of some 100 billion won ($90 million) in research funds for the two development projects over the next two years. Suh recruited leading scholars from KAIST and other institutions and established business firms to commercialize the achievements in laboratories. I had the opportunity of closely observing these research projects while I served as an adjunct professor at KAIST, mainly helping the university in the area of external relations.

Four years after the first test run in 2009, the KAIST-developed on-line electric vehicle is in operation only at Seoul Grand Park in Gwacheon, where electric tourist vehicles run along a 2-kilometer route imbedded with cables to charge the vehicle through a magnetic field. Research has continued to develop more economic ways of wireless charging with shorter construction time.

Carrying great hope of KAIST researchers, two OLEV buses will be put into service in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, on an ordinary road in July. The industrial city, which has sufficient power supply, will spend about 5 billion won to build the infrastructure for the system, but no other local governments have shown interest.

Time magazine selected the KAIST OLEV as one of the top 50 inventions in 2010. The first overseas introduction, by the City of McAllen, Texas, however, floundered because of a cash flow problems in the local government and OLEV Technologies of Boston, a joint venture with KAIST, according to The Monitor, a Texas newspaper. The McAllen authorities will now have to return the $1.9 million federal grant they received for the green energy project.

The path of the Mobile Harbor project is even less smooth. In June 2011, KAIST successfully demonstrated the use of a barge with a stabilized crane and a multistage trolley system to load and unload containers on the wavy open sea in Busan. According to a KAIST news release, the port city of Ponce, Puerto Rico, sent a letter of intent to KAIST for the purchase of two Mobile Harbor vessels in preparation for the expansion of the Panama Canal. I Googled to find out what happened to the deal and found no further progress with Ponce, or any other foreign port.

Unfortunately, a dispute over patent arose between Suh and the KAIST professors involved in the Mobile Harbor project over patent registration. The suit was an extension of the conflict between the university president and the body of professors who resisted Suh’s allegedly arbitrary way of reforming the academic system. Meanwhile, the government ended its financial support for the KAIST projects after two years.

Suh resigned in the middle of his second four-year term, succeeded by Dr. Kang Sung-mo, another Korean-born scientist who formerly served as the chancellor of the University of California, Merced. Under Kang’s management, the future of both OLEV and Mobile Harbor projects looks shaky as he said KAIST would not spend its budget on them and that further research work would have to depend on outside investment.

It is with a degree of unease that I reviewed the goings-on of the two flagship research projects at KAIST, which were started by an ambitious university head and a president who also wanted to pour the taxpayers’ money in some ventures that could demonstrate his dedication to the politically charged goal of green growth. I will be sorry but not surprised if I hear of the closures of the two research labs sometime in the future.

From the beginning, KAIST OLEV had inherent limitations because it required collaboration from three sides: the makers of vehicles, transportation businesses and the local authorities who have to build the infrastructure. As for the Mobile Harbor, the biggest obstacle was the risk of capsizing in rough waves while the container barge needed to be small to ensure high maneuverability.

Now, the new Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning will have to consider the future of not only the KAIST projects but numerous other less well publicized research schemes in view of their respective potential to increase national well-being. Ministry authorities should exhibit great technological expertise, a clear vision of global interdependence and determination to deter political ambitions from interfering with their creative endeavors to bring about a better future.

By Kim Myong-sik

Kim Myong-sik is a former editorial writer of The Korea Herald. ― Ed.