Shin Eun-jeong of STEPI elected vice chair of OECD Global Science Forum

Shin Eun-jeong, director of the Basic Research Policy Center at the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI), has been elected vice chair of the OECD Global Science Forum (GSF). She will serve for five years, helping to deliberate and coordinate the agenda for global science and technology cooperation.

STEPI announced Wednesday that Shin was elected vice chair at the 55th OECD GSF general assembly, held in London from Monday through Wednesday.

The OECD Global Science Forum is an international science policy body established in 1992. It promotes international joint research in large-scale science and discusses science and technology cooperation to address global challenges such as climate change. It also supports the policy activities of the OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy (CSTP).

Over the next five years, Shin will join a bureau that includes a chair from Sweden and representatives from the United States, France, Japan and South Africa, participating in the preliminary review and coordination of the global science and technology cooperation agenda.

Shin has worked at STEPI since 2013 and is an expert in open science, research data and research infrastructure policy. She has contributed to science policy development and international cooperation activities at organizations including the OECD and UNESCO.

In 2018, she co-authored a working paper with the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation and contributed to the revision of the OECD recommendation on research data in 2020. Since last year, she has been supporting the monitoring of that recommendation's implementation and participating in international norm discussions as the scope expands from research data to research software.

At UNESCO, she helped develop the 2021 open science recommendation and served as vice chair of the Asia-Pacific Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Network (STEPAN) from 2021 to 2025.

Her election is expected to expand South Korea's opportunities to reflect its positions on key global science policy issues — including the promotion of international joint research, the sharing of research outputs and data, and the balance between research security and openness.

"The global research environment is changing rapidly due to geopolitical tensions and the widespread use of AI," Shin said. "It is important to maintain the foundations of scientific research and address shared human challenges through close communication and cooperation among nations."

She added that she would "draw on the policy research expertise and international cooperation experience accumulated over the years to respond to emerging science policy issues and contribute to strengthening international scientific cooperation."