'Samsung pays W600m, we get 1 million': Science institute bonus row erupts over revamped evaluation system

"Samsung Electronics pays bonuses in the 600 million won ($390,000) range, yet the government-funded research institutes leading the country's science and technology development get a measly 1 million won. We had high hopes, and the disappointment is deep." — an official at a government-funded research institute

A bonus dispute has erupted after 23 government-funded science and technology research institutes under the National Research Council of Science and Technology conducted their first integrated evaluation under a revamped system introduced this year. The performance bonuses the government had promised — ranging from 1 million to 2 million won — fell far short of what researchers had anticipated.

The Ministry of Science and ICT uses a six-tier rating scale for institute evaluations: SS (outstanding), S, A (excellent), B (average), C (insufficient) and D (very insufficient). Institutes rated A or above receive performance bonuses — 3 million won for SS, 2 million won for S and 1 million won for A.

In this round of evaluations, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, the World Institute of Kimchi and the National Security Research Institute received S ratings. Thirteen institutes including the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute received A ratings, and six institutes including the Green Technology Center Korea received B ratings.

The three S-rated institutes will each receive 2 million won in bonuses, while the remaining 14 A-rated institutes will receive 1 million won each. The six B-rated institutes will receive nothing.

"We already feel strong pressure from having to undergo evaluations every year, and handing out such paltry bonuses only kills morale," an institute official said. "With the abolition of the project-based system also eliminating research allowances and R&D performance bonuses, the bonus amounts need to be raised to a level that researchers can actually accept."

The evaluation system was overhauled this year, shifting from the previous cycle of three-year management reviews and six-year research reviews to a unified annual assessment.

Under the new integrated framework, the focus has shifted from measuring achievement against plans to assessing institutional innovation and representative research outcomes. Performance reports — which previously ran to roughly 1,000 pages including supporting documents — have been streamlined to a maximum of 30 pages to reduce administrative burdens. The Ministry of Science and ICT had previously announced plans to expand bonus payments, which had been tied to management evaluations, to cover all institute staff as well as operating and project budgets.

Researchers on the ground, however, worry that the overhaul fails to reflect the unique nature of scientific work and could push institutes to chase short-term results with a lower risk of failure rather than pursue long-term research.

Within the science and technology community, critics argue that each institute has a distinct role and that the specialized, mission-specific nature of each organization must be taken into account. The current system's failure to do so, they say, raises serious questions about the objectivity and validity of the evaluations.

As with previous evaluations, larger institutes with bigger staffs and budgets are likely to score better than smaller ones, raising concerns that the system will entrench a hierarchy among government-funded institutes and, over time, produce a rigid ranking order.

"Rather than following the national standard science and technology classification framework, it would make more sense to group institutes by their real-world characteristics — such as a national strategy model, an advanced infrastructure support model or a business-linked support model — and evaluate them based on their respective areas of expertise," one institute official said.

The official added that, just as the Ministry of Economy and Finance's public institution evaluations include a separate assessment of institutional leadership, the evaluation criteria should incorporate a new leadership indicator. Such an indicator would allow the evaluation committee to assess each institute head's capacity for institutional innovation, willingness to take on challenges and overall management.