S. Korea leads global R&D spending: OECD
South Korea boasts one of the world's leading infrastructures for science development, with its spending on research and development (R&D) far higher than those of other countries, a Paris-based organization for economic cooperation said Monday.
The country's expenditure on R&D came to 4.15 percent of its gross domestic product in 2013, hovering above its members' average of 2.4 percent, according to the OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard. It marked a two-fold growth from the 2.2 percent posted in 1995. The country spent 59 trillion won (US$52.7 billion) in conducting R&D activities in 2013, up 3.8 trillion won from a year earlier. The figure includes figures from both the public and private sectors.
Israel, meanwhile, was the top-slot country by spending 4.21 percent of its GDP on R&D over the cited period, it said. The OECD report added South Korea boasted leadership in 11 of top 20 fast-growing technology segments, or "disruptive technologies," including the human interface for digital data transfer, which allows users to activate devices through voice or other non-traditional methods. Other key achievements of South Korea included its patents in the IoT and big-data segments. The country accounted for 14.1 percent of the global patents in the fields over the 2010-2012 period, it said.
"Korea's lead is built upon strong education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, with the highest percentage of tertiary graduates in natural sciences and engineering in the OECD area," the organization said.
The OECD, meanwhile, said South Korea still needs to make more efforts in improving the availability of the Internet for the elderly. While the organization estimated 80 percent of South Koreans were online on the back of the rising penetration of smartphones, the access to the Internet for those aged 55 and above hovered below the average of the OECD. The OECD also cited South Korea's creative economy policy as one of the significant global approaches to innovations.
The creative economy calls for merging various industry segments to generate new growth engines, which usually focus on utilizing the ICT for different segments.
The announcement came in line with the OECD Ministerial Meeting Daejeon 2015, World Science & Technology Forum that runs from Monday through Friday in Daejeon, a city packed with science institutes located 164 kilometers south of Seoul.
The country's expenditure on R&D came to 4.15 percent of its gross domestic product in 2013, hovering above its members' average of 2.4 percent, according to the OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard. It marked a two-fold growth from the 2.2 percent posted in 1995. The country spent 59 trillion won (US$52.7 billion) in conducting R&D activities in 2013, up 3.8 trillion won from a year earlier. The figure includes figures from both the public and private sectors.
Israel, meanwhile, was the top-slot country by spending 4.21 percent of its GDP on R&D over the cited period, it said. The OECD report added South Korea boasted leadership in 11 of top 20 fast-growing technology segments, or "disruptive technologies," including the human interface for digital data transfer, which allows users to activate devices through voice or other non-traditional methods. Other key achievements of South Korea included its patents in the IoT and big-data segments. The country accounted for 14.1 percent of the global patents in the fields over the 2010-2012 period, it said.
"Korea's lead is built upon strong education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, with the highest percentage of tertiary graduates in natural sciences and engineering in the OECD area," the organization said.
The OECD, meanwhile, said South Korea still needs to make more efforts in improving the availability of the Internet for the elderly. While the organization estimated 80 percent of South Koreans were online on the back of the rising penetration of smartphones, the access to the Internet for those aged 55 and above hovered below the average of the OECD. The OECD also cited South Korea's creative economy policy as one of the significant global approaches to innovations.
The creative economy calls for merging various industry segments to generate new growth engines, which usually focus on utilizing the ICT for different segments.
The announcement came in line with the OECD Ministerial Meeting Daejeon 2015, World Science & Technology Forum that runs from Monday through Friday in Daejeon, a city packed with science institutes located 164 kilometers south of Seoul.
