Comparative Study of Government R&D Investment by Research Activities: Cases of Korea, U.S, and UK

Survey and Analysis of National R&D Programs(S&A) in Korea shows how the government R&D investment is distributed throughout the year. With the S&A data, it is possible to analyze the government's R&D investment by the classifications of socio-economic objectives, research activities, research performing sectors, locations, technology classifications, technology lifecycle, and cooperative research, etc. In this paper, using the 2002-2006 S&A data, Korean government R&D investment by research activities is presented. Through the cross analyses with other survey items, government R&D investment in each research activity is introduced. Later, taking the importance of basic research in account in the knowledge based society, Korean government R&D investment in the basic research is compared to those in the U.S. and the U.K. Excluding the defense-related R&D, Korea's investment in basic research is insignificant compared to others. In 2006, the proportion of basic research in the total government R&D investment is 24.2% and it is relatively lower compared to U.S. (45.9% in 2005) and U.K.(42.5% in 2005). In conclusion, policy directions for the future government R&D investment in Korea are proposed.