On November 21, Lim Dae-sik, Head of the Science and Technology Innovation Headquarters at the Ministry of Science and ICT, visited four laboratories at the College of Science and the College of Life Sciences at Korea University to communicate with and encourage researchers, while also presiding over the general meeting of the Research System Innovation Planning Group to discuss key review tasks identified by the university, government-funded research institute, company, and specialized agency divisions.

First, we visited four laboratories: the Supramolecular Nanoorganic Materials Laboratory, the Super-depth Imaging Laboratory, the Nanospin Laboratory, and the RNA Genomics Laboratory.

We listened to the current status of research in basic fields such as physics, chemistry, and life sciences, and had a conversation with laboratory heads and young researchers regarding difficulties and suggestions encountered during the research process.

At the subsequent general meeting of the Research System Innovation Planning Team, discussions were held on problems perceived by the research field and key review tasks (drafts) identified based on opinions gathered from various sectors.

The 'Research System Innovation Planning Team,' which was launched on October 23 to promote groundbreaking research and development (R&D) system innovation with researchers as the owners, has been receiving and reviewing opinions on system improvement from various sectors, including academic societies in the science and technology field, university industry-academia cooperation foundations, corporate research institutes, research management agencies, government-funded research institutes, and major researcher communities since its launch, while also discussing major improvement tasks through meetings of each division.

At the general meeting held on this day, key short-term and mid-to-long-term review tasks of the Research System Innovation Planning Group, such as the advancement of evaluation culture, the streamlining of research management systems, and the improvement of research funding portfolios, were discussed in detail. At the same time, a consensus was reached that a "shift in perception" to create a healthy science and technology ecosystem is necessary before institutional improvements to solve urgent problems in the research field.

Lim Dae-sik Science and Technology Innovation"I am well aware that merely increasing the budget and amending laws makes it difficult to bring about tangible changes in the research field," the Director said, urging the members of the Research System Innovation Planning Team to "concretize unconventional improvement plans that resonate with the research field, based on the unreasonable practices and difficulties they have personally experienced."

Moving forward, the Research System Innovation Planning Team plans to derive and propose improvement measures by simultaneously gathering diverse opinions from the field for each major issue, and based on the tasks proposed through the activities of the Research System Innovation Planning Team, the Science and Technology Innovation Headquarters plans to prepare a pan-governmental R&D system improvement plan in the first half of next year.