The Presidential Committee on Policy Planning announced that it will abolish the performance-based system (PBS) for government-funded research institutes. However, the 23 institutes in the field of science and technology will gradually phase it out without a specific timeline.
The committee noted on the 29th that it will abolish the PBS system for the 24 government-funded research institutes under the Humanities and Social Sciences Research Council starting in 2026 through a joint review of the Economic 1st Division, Economic 2nd Division, and Planning Division.
The PBS system is designed to allow government-funded research institutes to secure national research and development (R&D) projects through competition, in addition to the grants they receive from the government. Although it was implemented to encourage competition among institutes and enhance performance, it has led to side effects where institutes focus solely on entrusted research and become fixated on short-term results, contrary to its original purpose. As the government R&D projects and tasks from each ministry have been downsized, the entrusted projects of the institutes have also become fragmented and unable to deliver proper results.
Revisions to the PBS system will proceed in a two-track manner. The 24 government-funded research institutes in the Economic and Humanities-Social Sciences research community will fully abolish the PBS system and transition to contributions starting in 2026. The 23 institutes affiliated with the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST) have decided to gradually push for reforms to the PBS system. The 23 science and technology institutes will gradually shift to a mission-oriented model over the next five years and will allocate the funding from the termination of government-entrusted projects to contributions starting next year. An annual budget of 500 billion won will be earmarked for planning large-scale mission-oriented projects.
Additionally, the science and technology research institutes will simultaneously promote the systematic allocation of funding for contributions, inter-agency evaluations, and the establishment of an integrated performance management system as well as reforms to the researcher compensation system. They will also establish measures to enhance research capacity to strengthen medium- and long-term comprehensive research functions, create concentrated research environments, and improve research quality management.