26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

In Korea, not only government but also private sector continues to increase investment in R&D, and then Facilities, apparatus, and human resources reached higher position comparing decade ago. The investment has been mentioned as a primary factor in nurturing companies, heightening national competitiveness, and securing sustainable development. The government has made efforts to establish various institutions for a more efficient resource allocation with the increase in R&D investment. In particular, as an appropriate budget allocation is crucial part in R&D　policy, various attempts to improve the system have been made by policy analyst or government officers fostering the linkage between government policies and budget portfolio in science and technology. In this study, we divided the government R&D investment areas in Korea and carried out comparative analysis. The main technological areas were divided into nine groups: life sciences, healthcare and medicine; food, agriculture, and livestock; machinery and production; materials and nano-technology; ICT and software; energy and resources; environment and climate; construction and transportation; and space, aerospace, and maritime industries. Each technological area was further divided into sub-classes. National Standard Classifications in Science and Technology were used as basic units in order to efficiently use the data of Korean R&D and policy activities. The priority is determined by using well known tool in policy decision-making: cluster analysis and the Analytic Hierarchy Process with intensive discussion among high level experts in R&D. We found that various data related with R&D policy have been generated and accumulated with careful consideration by many professionals in Korea. We found that gaps between current budgets and expert opinions varies according to the technology area, which should be dealt with in communication process in policy decision-making. However, we also found some restrictions. First, the data in policy fields in Korea has issues: are data quality as well as compatibility between various data sources in the area of government R&D decision-making. It becomes even worse from the perspective of multi-year mid- to long-term investment strategy. Second, we identified that there exist various differences in R&D environments in diverse technology areas. Through quantifying the size of government R&D investments and comparing the degree of monopoly in each technology area, it is found that each area has its own characteristics and the differences also exist in expert opinions. Despite such shortfalls, the application of objective data in the government R&D budgeting process is necessary, and the mid- to long-term data formulation and analysis for each technology is necessary in order to assign responsibilities to policy activities such as the strategic foresight, planning, and evaluation.