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South Korea The Role of Science and Technology
The most important sources of productive growth for South
Korean manufacturers had traditionally been directly or
indirectly related to the ability of South Korean companies to
acquire new technology from abroad and to adapt it to domestic
conditions, rather than paying the cost of research and
development. However, as Seoul's industry and exports continued
to evolve toward higher levels of technology, domestic research
and development efforts needed to be increased. Fortunately for
South Korea, its high level of well-educated workers, who
constitute a formidable brain trust for future research and
development, are its major asset.
The Seoul government began investing in technology research
institutes soon after the republic was established. The Korean
Atomic Energy Commission founded in 1959 was responsible for
research and development, production, dissemination, and
management of technology for peaceful applications of atomic
energy. In the mid-1960s, the government established the Ministry
of Science and Technology to oversee all government research and
development activities and the Korea Institute of Science and
Technology to function as an industrial research laboratory. In
the 1970s, in order to better coordinate research and
development, two scientific communities were established--one in
Seoul, the other near Taejon. The Seoul complex included the
Korea Institute of Science and Technology, the Korea Development
Institute (affiliated with the Economic Planning Board), the
Korea Advanced Institute of Science, and the Korea Atomic Energy
Research Institute. Plans for the Daeduk Science Town near Taejon
were far more ambitious. Modeled after the Tsukuba Science City
in Japan, by the late 1980s the Daeduk Science Town accommodated
laboratories specializing in shipbuilding, nuclear fuel
processing, metrology, chemistry, and energy research. The
government founded the Korea Advanced Institute of Science to
develop and offer graduate science programs, and it also
encouraged universities to develop their own undergraduate
programs in science.
The tremendous growth of Samsung since the mid-1980s was
strong evidence of the high productivity in such modern
industries as electronics. The group's total sales nearly doubled
(8.4 billion won to 14.6 billion won) between 1984 and 1986,
while the number of employees only increased from 122,000 to
147,000. The reason for this high degree of productivity was
South Korea's move away from labor-intensive industries to those
that were highly automated.
South Korean planners realized that the country needed to
advance quickly in such areas as high technology if the economy
were to grow while matching foreign competition. POSCO's
decisions to build the Pohang Institute of Science and Technology
and the Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology
were examples of this trend. POSCO also used a great deal of
money to lure back more than 100 top South Korean scientists and
researchers who had emigrated abroad.
The Pohang Institute of Science and Technology also
maintained a major undergraduate and graduate school. By 1988 the
institute had a faculty of 132 teachers, about 500 undergraduate
students, and approximately 110 graduate students. Only one of
every fifteen applicants was accepted and only those students who
scored in the top 2 percent of the nation's college entrance
examinations were allowed to apply.
POSCO's efforts represented a great change from the past. As
of the late 1980s, many of South Korea's younger scientists,
technocrats, and economic planners in had received their graduate
education in the United States. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s,
the government sponsored the scientific and technical education
of many graduate students at prestigious institutions, such as
Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The success of the Pohang Institute of Science and Technology
meant that many of South Korea's future scientific and technical
leaders would be educated at home.
In 1990 Seoul announced an ambitious plan to promote science
and technology so that high-technology activities would dominate
the economy by the year 2000. The Ministry of Science and
Technology intended to coordinate technology-related projects
between government and industry in a variety of fields including
semiconductors, computers, chemistry, and new materials.
The anticipated slowdown in economic growth could well be
counteracted by the continued high rate of capital formation,
increased productivity of labor, and expansion of the education
system. Until South Korea's per capita income reached that of the
most advanced industrial nations and as long as South Korea
remained a "follower" country benefiting from the experiences of
others while avoiding their mistakes, it was likely that strong
growth would continue.
In 1987 the Korea Development Institute issued a report,
Korea Year 2000, that profiled South Korean economic
development in 2000. The Korea Development Institute noted that
the industrial structure would be highly developed and would
resemble that of advanced countries inasmuchas high value-added
industries, high-technology industries, and soft industries grew
relatively rapidly. Further, changes in industrial structure were
expected rapidly to reduce the demand for unskilled workers while
simultaneously increasing the demand for professional and
technical manpower, resulting in further change of the employment
structure.
The Korea Development Institute also noted that the Ministry
of Science and Technology had prepared a long-range plan of
science and technology for the twenty-first century that took
into account limited available resources. Accordingly, Seoul
selected its comparative advantage areas, including informatics--
particularly information storage and retrieval and electronic
data processing, fine chemicals, and precision machinery in the
short term; biotechnology and new materials in the mid-term;
public benefit areas, such as the environment, health, and
welfare, as another group; and oceanography and aeronautics for
the medium and long term.
Data as of June 1990
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