Soon-Ki Hong

Technology Foresight Activities in Korea and in Countries Closing the Technology Gap

Abstract This article discusses technology foresight in selected countries which were politically dependent (colonial) before World War II and considered as “under-developed” in the post-war period. Most of them show considerable economic dynamism in the 1990s, which is not always based on their own scientific and technological capability. For this group of countries, national exercises in technology foresight are likely to be an important tool in planning the strategic direction for science and technology development in order to catch up economically as well as socially. In Korea, which has recently become an OECD member, comparative advantage based on factors such as low wages and protected industries are no longer effective as the economy is now wide open to the world. Foresight is being used to look at comparative advantages based on Korea’s own knowledge-creating activities. In southeast Asian countries, foresight is still in an infant stage, but most of these have medium-term planning cycles and have undertaken longer-term vision studies. In South Africa, a national foresight project is running, as is an adapting foresight process to make the large national research organization fit. In Latin America, an agenda has been set up which indicates the desire of several countries to engage in foresight activities using different approaches.

An analysis of the net efficiency of Korea's national R&D programs

This paper assesses the net efficiency of Koreas government-sponsored R&D projects using a threestage approach. Measuring its net efficiency raises the reliability of the analysis results by increasing the homogeneity of DMUs. The empirical results show that the private participation has a positive effect on the R&D efficiency. This implies the necessity of efforts to encourage private organizations to participate aggressively in the R&D programs. This study expects to contribute to formulating policy for efficient operation of the R&D programs.

Development and application of Korea's supercomputing technology and service classification systems

Securing supercomputing technology and resources are urgently needed for Korea to lead scientific researches and to enhance industrial competitiveness in the next decade. In this paper, supercomputing technologies and services were systematically classified to help KISTI formulate the supercomputing development strategies. These classification systems are also expected to contribute to identifying, selecting, and managing research projects for KISTI Supercomputing Center.