http://korea.net/News/News/NewsView.asp?se...34&part=107

Korea's R&D ranked within top 10 worldwide
Date: December 20, 2006





Korea ranks among the top 10 countries in the world in terms of the proportion of gross domestic product allocated to research and development, a government report said Tuesday (Dec. 19).

As of 2005, Korea spent 24.15 trillion won ($25.94 billion), or 2.99 percent of its annual GDP, on R&D, the Ministry of Science and Technology said. The sum includes money spent by the government, the public sector, private businesses and labs.

This places it sixth or seventh in the world and higher than many industrialized countries like the United States (2.69 percent), Germany (2.49 percent) and France (2.16 percent), although lower than the 3.13 percent spent by Japan.

In addition, the annual increase in the government's R&D budget, which reached 14.2 percent from 2005 to 2006, exceeds the overall budget gain of 5.9 percent for the same period, indicating the importance of this sector. The R&D budget for this year hit 8.9 trillion won.

Reflecting such growth, the number of patents requested by Korean scientists and engineers under the Patent Cooperation Treaty reached 4,747 this year, the sixth largest amount in the world. The total number of papers by Korean authors cited by the global science citation index reached 23,048, or 14th worldwide.

In 2005, Korea's technology exports reached $1.62 billion, representing an annual increase of 14.7 percent, as quality improvements spurred overseas demand.

good news. korea has for a long time been using japanese r and d, developing their own will propell south korea into the world's elite

Low productivity and faulty education system is the bane of Korean R&D. Money does not solve problems. Im glad that money is being spent on research but we need better researchers, scientists and professors. The kind of people who win noble prizes and make notable changes to the world. The kind of people who inspire others.

i think the best indicator of a country's R&D is its number of nobel prize winners