The Ministry of Science and ICT decided to newly include research and development (R&D) projects related to technology commercialization in the scope of exceptions to the "3 principal investigators and 5 participating investigators" system under Article 64 of the Enforcement Decree of the National Research and Development Innovation Act.
On the 22nd, the Presidential Advisory Council on Science & Technology held its 75th operations committee meeting and reviewed and approved a draft list of projects to be excluded from the simultaneous research and development project cap for 2026, which includes this content. The operations committee of the Presidential Advisory Council on Science & Technology conducts preliminary reviews of agenda items for the council's decision-making body, the top deliberative body on science and technology policy, and reviews and approves delegated agenda items.
The "3 principal investigators and 5 participating investigators" system is a rule that limits the number of national R&D projects a researcher can conduct at the same time, allowing a principal investigator to handle up to three and a participating researcher up to five. It was introduced to prevent researchers from being overloaded with projects and to ensure research immersion and faithful conduct of research.
However, there have been continued on-site criticisms that the system became an obstacle to carrying out follow-up R&D projects linked to technology startups. Because technology commercialization projects require cooperation with a variety of institutions and corporations—such as technology transfer, attracting investment, and prototype production—opinions have steadily been raised that regulatory relaxation is needed.
After reviewing these opinions and industry demands, the Ministry of Science and ICT decided to exclude projects for technology commercialization and startups, unlike pure academic research, from the application of the "3 principal investigators and 5 participating investigators" system. As a result, the competent ministries can support research lab-developed technologies to move quickly to the market.
Currently, exceptions to the "3 principal investigators and 5 participating investigators" include small-scale projects with an average annual research budget of 60 million won or less, and projects that sign separate agreements on the same project with multiple ministries and specialized agencies.
At the operations committee meeting, Park In-gyu, head of the Office of Science, Technology and Innovation, said, "While maintaining an environment where researchers can focus on research, we have opened an institutional path for technology to spread quickly to the market instead of remaining in the lab."