Illustration by ChatGPT DALL·E 3

The government plans to introduce the 'Science and Engineering Research Living Allowance' (Korean-style stipend), which will provide student labor costs (800,000 won for master's programs, 1.1 million won for doctoral programs) to all science and engineering graduate students starting next year; however, it has been revealed that only about 30 universities will actually receive it in the first year.

According to the list of integrated management organizations for student labor costs announced by the Ministry of Science and ICT on the 22nd, only 25 universities, including Gachon University, were eligible to receive the research living allowance.

The integrated management system for student labor costs allows individual professors to manage the labor costs for research and development (R&D) projects not individually, but rather in an integrated manner at the account of the principal investigator or by research institution. To receive labor cost support by participating in the government-supported research living allowance program, universities must choose the institutional unit under the integrated management system for student labor costs.

Major national universities such as Seoul National University and Kyungpook National University, as well as many prominent private universities including Yonsei University, Korea University, and Sungkyunkwan University, were not included in this list of managed institutions, creating uncertainty regarding whether these universities will receive support for the program.

The Ministry of Science and ICT explained that some of the universities that applied for unit management need to make improvements, and thus only the 25 universities that satisfy the requirements were included in this announcement. The ministry plans to complete improvements next month and reassess universities in February. However, it is reported that only 34 universities have expressed their intention to apply for institutional management to receive program support, meaning that even after further selections, the number of universities actually receiving support is expected to remain around 30. The Ministry of Science and ICT initially expected that about 60 universities would participate.

One of the reasons for the low participation of universities is that many researchers are negative about the introduction of institutional unit integrated management. There was significant discontent among researchers as labor costs could be redistributed from those who took on more R&D projects to those who took on fewer. It has also been suggested that the university-industry collaboration departments in charge of labor cost distribution did not have enough time to establish the necessary systems. The Ministry of Science and ICT stated that it would persuade universities while increasing opportunities for institutional applications to ensure that more universities can benefit.