South Korea is on the best way to becoming a member of the world’s largest analysis group. This March, after 5 years of preparation, the East Asian nation accomplished an settlement to enter Horizon Europe as an affiliate member. Horizon Europe is the European Union’s 95-billion-euro funding program for analysis and innovation.
Associate member status permits nations like South Korea to each contribute to the fund and have their analysis entities apply for funding “on equal phrases with entities of EU nations.” Alongside South Korea, 19 different nations, together with Canada and New Zealand, have additionally agreed to turn into affiliate members, most of them non-EU member states in Europe. In Asia, Singapore and Japan are additionally within the strategy of negotiating affiliation.
Europe’s curiosity in South Korea is unsurprising given the nation’s standing as a science and expertise powerhouse. South Korea ranks second, after Israel, in R&D funding as a proportion of GDP. Science and expertise have been thought of main instruments for the financial and industrial development that led South Korea from being a colonized after which war-torn nation to a profitable developed financial system. In different phrases, strategic use of science and expertise has been essential for Korean transformation.
However there may be extra to the brand new Europe-South Korea analysis connection than this background.
Towards the backdrop of stress between China and the USA, each South Korea and Europe are eager to seek out methods to diversify their R&D companions. Science and expertise have turn into a significant space of concern between these two giants. Squeezed between a safety alliance with the USA and deep financial partnership with China, South Korea has as soon as once more discovered itself a shrimp pressed between two whales. Establishing ties exterior of China and the USA might no less than reduce this stress. It’s on this context that intensifying collaboration with Europe turns into extra enticing.
A second situation is an aspiration in South Korea to shift from conventional strengths in expertise to increasing capabilities in fundamental science. Inner discussions in South Korea spotlight that the time has come for Korea to alter its science and expertise paradigm to not solely deal with financial improvement, but in addition to pay extra consideration to fundamental science and contribute to fixing international issues.
South Korea has been a formidable success story in combining science and expertise improvement with financial exercise. As one in every of 4 “Asian tigers,” in 2021 South Korea was officially recategorized as a developed nation by the United Nations Convention on Commerce and Growth (UNCTAD). This transfer was exceptional for the reason that U.N. company had not upgraded a member state’s improvement standing since its institution of 1964.
Amid this financial success, voices have grown arguing that South Korea ought to enable its science and expertise sector to mature, particularly by granting extra help and respect to fundamental science.
Within the 2023 Science and Expertise Discussion board, Seoul’s Ambassador for Science and Expertise on the Ministry of International Affairs, Shin Sung-chul, emphasised that South Korea ought to discover methods to diversify its global science and technology collaboration partners to incorporate both European and developing countries in a more substantial way. He identified that it’s good for South Korea to revitalize collaborative analysis with “nations of fundamental science,” equivalent to Switzerland, Sweden, and Austria.
Horizon Europe might, subsequently, present assets and connections to assist South Korea construct its fundamental science.
These concerns are additionally tied up in home political wrangling. A serious been the huge lower in funding for science and expertise. Compared to 2023, the government lowered the R&D budget by 14.7 percent for 2024. This marked the primary time that authorities funds allotted for R&D have declined since 1991. Even through the Asia Monetary Disaster of 1997-98, South Korea’s R&D price range grew as a proportion of spending. To elucidate this stunning lower, the federal government claimed that there was a cartel in the field of science and technology. But this was not adopted up by any authorities actions revealing who’re the principle cartel members and what plans may be adopted to dissolve the alleged cartel.
The discount in R&D funding has raised criticisms that South Korea goes towards international situations. Given geopolitical tensions and the obvious want for nations to develop management of their very own applied sciences, permitting R&D budgets to drop appears onerous to justify.
In gentle of those home and international situations, South Korea’s entry into Horizon Europe might be fairly smart. Horizon Europe focuses on creating data that may contribute to international society. Becoming a member of Horizon Europe can open a brand new chapter for South Korea – or for different Asian nations within the close to future.
Horizon Europe’s emphasis on open science means approaches to innovation get shared. This sharing may help the world transfer to the subsequent degree in tackling international issues. Collaboration of this kind generally is a step to take science and expertise past nationwide borders and, extra importantly, to enliven conversations about how innovation can enhance our world. This implies focusing not simply on materials wealth or nationwide safety but in addition addressing the ethics of science and expertise development and reaffirming the worth of curiosity, each for its personal sake and for contributing to society.
