World-Class University in Korea: Proactive Government, Responsive University, and Procrastinating Academics
This chapter described and discussed how the WCU model has been initiated and encouraged by government policy, how Korean universities responded to the policy, and finally how the academics are struggling to adapt to this new environment. Exploring the in
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World-Class University in Korea: Proactive Government, Responsive University, and Procrastinating Academics Jung Cheol Shin and Yong Suk Jang
9.1 Introduction Competitiveness in knowledge production is critical to the Korean economy because the Korean economy entered into a knowledge-based economy in the late 1990s. The Korean economy is globally competitive in the semiconductor, electronics, mobile phone, ship building, and automobile industries. These industries rely heavily upon technological developments. Government policy prioritizes how to educate competitive manpower to support and lead international competition through producing leading-edge technology. At present, the knowledge base for these industries has been built through studying abroad in advanced countries and industry-based research institutes within Korea. In the mid-1990s the Korean government began to invest in the establishment of a knowledge base through competitive universities in Korea (Shin 2009a). In the late 1990s, the Korean government began to aggressively invest in research and development (R&D) expenditure to support the national research capability. The share of R&D expenditure was 0.37% in 1970, 0.56% in 1980, 1.72% in 1990, 2.3% in 2000, and 3.47% in 2007 (Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology 2010). Currently, Korea’s share of R&D investment is the highest among the OECD countries. As part of the effort, the government began to develop a project to support university-based research. A well-known project is the Brain Korea 21 (BK 21) project which was launched in 1999. The project was designed to support the next generation of academics by supporting research funding. J.C. Shin () Department of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of (South Korea) e-mail: [email protected] Y.S. Jang Public Administration, Yonsei University, Seoul, South Korea e-mail: [email protected] J.C. Shin and B.M. Kehm (eds.), Institutionalization of World-Class University in Global Competition, The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective 6, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4975-7 9, © Springer ScienceCBusiness Media Dordrecht 2013
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The project entered the second phase in 2006 and will be terminated in 2012. As well as the BK 21, the Korean government launched similar research projects. Recently, the Korean government began to support the humanities and social sciences research that used to be isolated from research funding. For example, Humanity Korea (HK) project was designed to support humanities and the Social Science Korea (SSK) project to support social science research. With the technology-based industrial development and national investment in R&D, building a world-class university (WCU) became a hot issue among policymakers and academic leaders in the mid-2000s when the global rankings emerged. In response, the Korean government launched a funding project called Worldclass University in 2008. The world-class university has been a contin
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