Why Korean Technology Goes So Far

The other day I watched the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, the thinnest foldable phone in the world, with a Flex Hinge design that closes completely without leaving a crease on the screen.

What impressed me was not just the screen or the startlingly advanced features. It was the feeling of wondering: how do you produce new technology this fast?

I thought back to last month, when I attended the APEC Scientist Invitation event. In the first part, representatives from Korea described their country’s Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) policy system. I also looked through the additional report “OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy: Korea 2023.” So I’d like to share with everyone here that what Korea has is not luck, and not investment alone. It comes from a “system” designed from every angle to create and use science for the real benefit of the country. It is a system designed so that “knowledge” connects with implementation, and “science” is brought in to answer the country’s problems.

If I had to summarize quickly, it is designed so that the state “knows how to use knowledge.”

Science in Korea is not the business of any single ministry. It is a system within the state (and the private sector) with clearly separated roles that are still tightly connected. It has three levels.

1. Strategic orientation

The PACST (Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology) advises the president directly.
PACST also links to the STI Office, the long-term policy councils, and the various ministries.

2. Coordination and planning

The STI Office acts as the “central brain,” coordinating policy, driving strategy, and allocating the national budget.
The main ministries include MSIT (Ministry of Science and ICT), MOE (Education), MOTIE (Industry and Energy), and others.
PACST, the STI Office, and the planning councils work together through the “STI Master Plan,” which has a 10-year framework and a review every 5 years.

3. Implementation

The implementing bodies include NRF (National Research Foundation), KEIT, ETRI, IITP, universities, and the various GRIs (Government Research Institutes).
The budget system is project-based and mission-based, with core funding, competitive funding, and funding for national goals.

Each level has its own role, its own coordination mechanism, and a budget matched to its mission, with no overlap.

You can see that setting technology direction in Korea doesn’t start in the research lab or the university. It starts with a science and technology advisory body that reports directly to the president (PACST), and has the power to recommend the “national direction” through the lens of science.

PACST is not just an advisor. It is a “tool of the state” that helps point out:

What challenges is the country facing?
Which technologies should be accelerated?
What kind of research answers system-level problems?
What STI infrastructure is still missing?

And at the implementation level, there are large research organizations such as ETRI, KIST, and KIER, which work with both autonomy and accountability. It is not just receive funding, do research, submit a report. They have to create measurable impact at the economic and social level.

Another major turning point for Korea was shifting its investment approach from Research Funding to Challenge Funding.

The country doesn’t care whether you are the number 1 or number 100 university. It asks: can you solve the country’s problems? If you can, the state will back you fully.

This is called Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy. Korea sets clear targets, for example:

Korea is the fastest aging country in the world, and needs complete “Aging Tech.”
It targets Net Zero by 2050, which requires investment in green hydrogen and carbon capture.
It is pushing Korea to lead in 6G and AI, not just to “not fall behind” but to be “ahead.”

What matters is that these challenges are not set by researchers alone. They are set at the policy level, and then the STI mechanisms are used to solve them.

Of course, researchers still have freedom to think, but they must align with the national missions. For example, if I were a materials researcher who wanted funding for research on a new material, I would have to show how it would reduce energy use in industrial systems, or create healthcare products for the elderly, and so on.

However, the state also has other kinds of frameworks:

Investigator-led Research, for basic or curiosity-driven research, through the NRF. The state understands that basic knowledge may not answer immediate needs but is the foundation of long-term innovation. This type of funding makes up about 20 to 30% of the total research budget.
Public-Private Co-funding Projects, for professors who want to work with the private sector, even if the topic is specialized, such as research on a specific AI algorithm a company is interested in, or special materials used in industrial parts.

To drive the funding mechanisms above, another important factor is budget. Korea invests very heavily in R&D, and the private sector takes part seriously. In 2021, Korea spent 4.93% of GDP on R&D, with more than 75% coming from the private sector. Thailand, meanwhile, invests about 1.1% of GDP in R&D, with the private sector contributing about 60% of the total. The figure rises every year, but it is still far from the 2% target Thailand set in its own STI plan.

In Thailand, after 2019 we merged the science ministry with TRF, NRCT, and higher education to create the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI), which was a major step forward in organizing the structure.

But unfortunately, this consolidation hasn’t yet been able to “design a system that gets the whole state moving together” the way Korea has.

Today Thailand still doesn’t have:

An independent central agency with the power to coordinate STI across ministries.
A national STI committee with the authority to set strategy together with ministers and the prime minister.
Mission-oriented or challenge-based budget mechanisms.
A research evaluation system based on impact on society, rather than just the number of publications.

That means agencies may still lack a clear “shared national goal” that everyone works toward together. And many in the private sector, especially SMEs, still can’t reach the innovation system. They have no budget, or don’t know how to join universities in building new technologies.

We may have a national research plan, the Thailand 4.0 policy, and the BCG Economy Model. But what we still lack is the “mechanism” that makes those plans take effect. And importantly, we don’t yet have a system that “listens to the voice of science and technology” in the state’s decision-making.

Technology can’t come from researchers or inventors alone, however good they are. It comes from a system that opens the way for people with knowledge to solve the country’s big problems.

Korea chose to do that through designing the state system, by building structures where “the country’s challenges” are set seriously, “experts” come in to propose solutions, and “people in the bureaucracy” have the authority and mechanisms to actually choose to use those solutions.

Our innovation system won’t change if the structure (of the state) stays the same.

We may need a central STI agency that is independent of the ministries. We need budgets set from challenges, not by hierarchy. We need to give universities and researchers more autonomy, in exchange for accountability measured by real impact.

Samsung didn’t happen by luck, and Korea’s technology leadership is no accident.

It is the result of “the state investing in a system that lets science work,” and opening the way for people with knowledge to seriously change the world.

Maybe one day we’ll have a Thai-brand foldable phone that is thinner than the Z Fold. ✌️