South Korea has long had an impressive R&D-to-GDP ratio, but the country is now the world leader in the field, according to a Ministry of Science and ICT survey of 50,619 domestic companies between April and September. In 2017, South Korea’s R&D-to-GDP ratio was 4.55%, up 0.32 percentage points, beating Israel’s’ ratio of 4.25%. In total, South Korea invested KRW 78.8 trillion ($69.3 billion) in R&D last year, a 13.5% increase that puts South Korea in fifth place for highest R&D spending globally.

R&D investment by the private sector expanded the most at 14.7% to KRW 60.1 ($53.15 billion). Corporations spent KRW 62.3 trillion ($55.4 billion) on R&D, which made up 80% of total R&D investments in 2017. Corporate investments also include a portion of government R&D activity, which accounts for KRW 20 trillion ($17.7 billion) per year. Public research institutes spent KRW 9.6 trillion ($8.5 billion) on R&D in 2017, representing 12% of total R&D spending, and universities spent KRW 6.7 trillion ($5.9 billion), accounting for 9%.

Development research for commercialization made up 64% of total R&D investments at KRW 50.1 trillion ($44.3 billion). It was followed by application research and basic research, which totaled KRW 17.3 trillion ($15.3 billion) and KRW 11.4 trillion ($10.1 billion), respectively. The number of researchers in R&D also grew 4.8% last year, reaching 482,796, with 383,100, or 79%, working as full-time equivalent researchers.

Source: BusinessKorea