The National Science and Technology Commission recently announced that they would actively support basic research next year in part by increasing the budget allocated to the International Science Business Belt Project by 20 percent from last year.

It is good news because long-term, stable support is indispensable for promoting basic science. In addition to the budget, investment in human resources is also compulsory. Despite our short history of investment in science and technology, we need to support promising young scientists to allow them to work without restraint under better conditions and systems.

In reality, however, research environments are often inadequate. According to the survey on the current status of science and engineering manpower by the Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning, only 25.1 percent of domestic doctoral researchers in companies, public research institutes and universities responded that they would return even if they got a job overseas. This reflects a decrease compared with the previous year’s 35.1 percent. It tells us that they are not satisfied with Korea’s research environment.

Only 25.1 percent of doctoral researchers responded that administrative support required for research was provided, and just 19.7 percent were satisfied with the investment in manpower. In addition, working conditions have worsened over the last year. Working hours per week have increased by 1.8 hours for doctoral researchers while R&D projects have decreased by 5.6 percent.

Overall job satisfaction has decreased by 8.2 percent. The decrease in satisfaction of self-development opportunities, work duties and bonus seems especially serious. Poor working conditions may lead to an increase in turnover rate and decrease in productivity on the organizational level, and to the increase in turnover abroad on the national level; in that sense, measuring the improvement of working conditions is necessary.

In order to improve the working environment, setting conditions of committing themselves to their own tasks must be the priority. Especially, it is important to cut free young doctorate researchers from administrative and miscellaneous tasks, besides their own duties.

Universities should build premeditated long-term research groundwork based on economic stability. Particularly, they need to increase research funds for the doctoral course and postdoctoral course ― the most significant periods of the career.

Furthermore, it is crucial to encourage international exchanges to improve research quality and satisfaction. For the last 30 years, co-winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics, Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine have exceeded 50 percent in 1950s and have come up to the 90 percent range in 2000s. Of the total 307 Nobel Prize winners in Physics, Chemistry and Physiology or Medicine between 1901 and 2010, about 52 percent ― 160 cases ― are multiple winners.

The increase of co-winners is the result of an increase of international collaborative research in accordance with enlargement, conflation and complexation of cutting-edge science. What is clear is that young researchers’ opportunities of global cooperation and collaboration should be encouraged to promote international collaborative research; for example, a researcher exchange program, invitation of outstanding researchers from abroad or participation in international exchange activities.

Evaluation of basic research itself requires change. In the basic research area, “evaluation” should be replaced with “consulting” for the actual performance. Avoiding excessive year-to-year evaluations of long-term projects, we need a strict selection process and patience to wait for the outcome.

In the case of long-term basic research, the evaluation system ― not the supervision ― is essential to assess performance at the conclusion through the biennial or triennial interim check on the problems during the research process. New researchers just starting their own research especially need an environment where a free trial is encouraged under simplified evaluation.

When our efforts to hand over a better research environment to the young generation are persistent and achievements through the efforts are accumulated for a lengthy period of time, our longing for the power of basic science will become a reality.

By Byeon Soon-cheon, Director of S&T Policy Coordination Division, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning
(sbyeon@kistep.re.kr)