Public policy toward the innovation-driven economy in Korea

This paper delineates and assesses the public policies aimed at upgrading the national innovation system under the Government of People, led by President Kim Dae-jung. In the past four years, the government has taken policy initiatives for the long-term planning of national innovation, the promotion of basic research, and the increase of national R&D investment, whilst carrying out various steps for strengthening HRST development, enhancing the utilisation of HRST, and expanding the career opportunities of women HRST. In addition, it has promoted venture businesses as the new private innovation dynamos by facilitating the start-up of venture businesses and their technological innovation, and improving the financial infrastructure and incentives for those venture companies. The current administration's policy effort appears to have gained notable achievement in terms of R&D intensity, the volume of R&D investment, the development and utilisation of HRST, international patents, SCI publication, and the number of private research institutes. The current administration's policies can be characterised as government-initiated, target-oriented or plan-based, and input-focused, which has caused its inability to tackle existing problematic practices (including the weak interface among innovation actors and with foreign agencies, under-utilisation of research resources in universities, and low mobility of HRST) and created such unexpected problems as moral hazard and loss of entrepreneurship among venture businesses, and private innovation actors' continued reliance on governments initiatives. In conclusion, public innovation policies in Korea are undergoing the test of reshaping in their progress to a knowledge-based economy.