• Journal of Korea Technology Innovation Society
• /
• v.16 no.1
• /
• pp.346-366
• /
• 2013

The importance of challenging and creative research recently has been increased, risk-taking on the R&D is being needed. The settlement of policy is urgently required in order to protect the result of high-risk research. 'Honorable Failure' is statutory by 'Regulation on the National R&D Program management' to resolve this issue, however its standards and detailed guides are not provided enough or the ministerial funding agencies apply different guidelines, making the researchers on the field confused by far. Therefore this paper reviews the current state of 'Honorable Failure Policy'(saving the 'failed' research despite of its adequate process or performance) and compares with the cases of major countries, then points out following issues; the uncertainty of the criterion, the difference of the main agent performing evaluation, admission of the failure, the utilization of the result of 'failed' research, the vagueness of the range of sanctions and restriction, and the lack of method of inspection and prevention for repetitive failure of the research projects. Finally, this paper proposes the solutions for these issues to improve.

• STI Policy Review
• /
• v.4 no.2
• /
• pp.41-54
• /
• 2013

R&D is inherently an uncertain endeavor, yet now more than ever those performing R&D with public funding are called upon to clarify the utility of their research. Calls for public accountability are mounting with the increase in constraints on government budgets due to the recent worldwide economic recession, in response to which both policymakers and researchers pay much more attention to rigorously assessing publicly funded R&D. A key issue complicating R&D evaluation in these circumstances is how to adequately account for the nature and degree of risk involved in a given R&D program or project. This study deliberates on certain issues involving the measurement of ex-ante risk in public R&D evaluation: (i) information asymmetry between R&D sponsors and performers, (ii) ambiguity in the measurement of returns in both prospective and retrospective evaluation, and (iii) the dilemma between measurement error and omitted variable bias for empirical estimation of R&D performance. The study then presents an analysis of hypothetical evaluation results that apply risk-relevant weights to the annual evaluation outcomes of South Korea's national R&D programs funded during 2006~2012. In this counterfactual re-evaluation of public R&D program performance, high-risk R&D programs turn out to receive higher evaluation than non-high-risk programs. The current study suggests that R&D evaluation ignoring ex-ante risk is not only conceptually invalid since R&D activities are intrinsically uncertain endeavors, but unfair as R&D performers are asked to be accountable for the results that were in fact out of their reach.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.49 no.4
• /
• pp.325-333
• /
• 2016

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP) introduced its new Mission Oriented Evaluation System (MOES) for government affiliated research institutes and Government Supported Research Institutes (GSRI) on science and technology in 2013. The Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) is the first MOES applied Science and Technology (S&T) GSRI, that has research divisions focusing on geoscience and geological surveys, mineral resources extraction and utilization, petroleum extraction and marine mineral research, and geological applied and environment research. In appling the final evaluation of MOES on KIGAM, we found difficulty classifing the concepts of research excellence and risk (innovativeness) in guidelines of Research Evaluation Indicators (REIs) of MSIP. We have developed quantitative and qualitative indicators that can present research excellence and risk (innovativeness) through the KIGAM World Class Laboratory (WCL) strategy and related studies, innovative research and development guidelines of MSIP (2013a) and honorable R&D failure guidelines of MSIP (2013b). We have applied our developed REIs in KIGAM which handles basic research, applied and development research and public services. Therefore, our developed REIs can be effectively applied in every S&T GSRI.