First-Year BK21 evaluation leads to incentives and subsidy cuts
The Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development announced results of the evaluation on September 18, which reflect how well universities have been progressing in funded research activities over the year, specifically during the period of March 2006 to February 2007.
According to the assessment, the amount of funding to be cut from low-performing universities amounts to 6.79 billion Korean won. The saved budget will be re-directed into additional funding for the top 120 performers at 41 universities. In the metropolitan area, Seoul National University reaped best results by listing 14 programs and project teams within the top 120. Among regional universities, Busan National University marked the top by listing 15 programs and project teams.
In terms of overall achievements, 9,069 researchers acquired master’s and doctoral degrees under the subsidy project in 2006, a 111 percent increase compared to 2005, the last year of the first-phase BK21. Ninety-two percent of these degree earners found employment upon graduation.
The number of papers published in SCI-level journals grew from 8,883 in 2005 to 20,418 in 2006, up 130 percent over a single year. The total number of scientific papers published by BK21 participants reached 23,704 in 2006.
The BK21 project has also proved to be effective in attracting private finance. Industry-academic collaboration saw a great boost over the year, with the total funding from government R&D budgets and private sources amounting to 1,051 billion won. This is more than 3.6 times the amount of BK21’s total budget of 290 billion.
During the same period, a total of 3,767 patents were registered, 3,313 domestic and 454 international. Of these, 441 international patents were acquired in the field of science and technology. This translates to 11.9 domestic patents per funding of 1 billion won, and 1.6 international patents per 1 billion won in average.
Great progress was made in university specialization at the same time, enabling an improvement in educational environments. The overall rate of full-time faculty at participating universities grew from an average 59 percent in 2005 to 63 percent as of April 1, 2007. The number of students per professor accordingly fell from average 31 in 2005 to 29 in April 2007.
The first-year evaluation was conducted by the BK21 Project Management Committee under the Korea Research Foundation, against 568 programs and projects that encompass 6,541 faculty members, 2,406 new research personnel(contracted young professors) and 34,892 master’s and doctoral students.
The evaluation will soon be followed by a “Spot Check” assessment, through which the Committee will make a random sampling of 5~10 percent of the programs and projects, so as to cut subsidy, dismiss researchers, cancel program contracts, or redeem funds for cases of misconduct such as duplicate paper publications and plagiarism.
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2008년 2월 20일 16:26
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2008년 2월 18일 16:28