In 1999, R&D made up 2.07% of South Korea’s GDP and by 2014, that number reached 4.29%, or $60.5 billion. This makes South Korea the global leader in R&D investment as a percentage of GDP, followed by Israel, Japan, the US, China and the EU. By 2017, the country plans to increase R&D investment to 5% of GDP, with the government announcing last month that science funding would spike 36% by 2018 to 1.5 trillion won ($1.2 billion). Funding for R&D comes from industry, government and “other,” at 75%, 23% and 2%, respectively. Experimental development receives the largest portion of funding at $38.4 billion, followed by applied research at $11.5 billion and basic research at $10.6 billion. South Korea also ranks fourth in the highest proportion of researchers in the workforce, with 12.84 researchers per one thousand people in 2013. Additionally, its academic publication output has doubled since 2005, with the majority of publications in chemistry, engineering, physics and life sciences.

Source: Nature