This study focuses on the West German R & D system which is characterized by government's leading role, strong government-supported laboratory structure and extensive promotion of basic research. The German Federal and Lander governments playa leading...
This study focuses on the West German R & D system which is characterized by government's leading role, strong government-supported laboratory structure and extensive promotion of basic research. The German Federal and Lander governments playa leading role in the effort to establish a position as a world technological leader by financing one third of the German R & D budget. They fund most of basic and large-scale research executed by universities and government-supported laboratories as well as a substantial part of industrial R & D.
West Germany has experienced for the last three decades a sustained extension of the government-supported laboratory structure comprising as of the end of 1989 13 national research centres with a high requirement for large-scale equipement for basic research, 60 institutes of the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG) for basic research and 35 institutes of the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft(FhG) for contract research. This laboratory structure represents along with the traditional university laboratories the backbone of the German R & D system.
And another characteristic of the German system seems to be that the importance of basic research is undisputed and that its financing has been able to be kept at a high level. West Germany is now by far the most basic research intensive country of the world. It spends more than 20% of the national R & D budget for basic research.
One possible stimulation of this study for the Korean technology policy is the necessity for an extensive promotion of basic and large-scale research. For the last three decades Korea has concentrated on the development of industrial technology by creating the Korea Institute of Science and Technology(KIST) and a great number of laboratories in areas of particular industries such as petrochemicals and machine building which are largely contract research organizations like the FhG type institutes. Although Korea's technology system has enabled a rapid industrialization of the country, it will no longer garantee further economic development. This is because the Korean R & D budget has been yet very small both in absolute and relative term. And there has been hardly any important basic research.
In order to have a sustained technological and economic development, Korea has to exert itself seriously for basic and large-scale research. Apart from extensively promoting basic research executed by universities there is a need for creating German national centre and MPG type institutes which should work closely with the academic communities.