Technological innovation in GRIs, universities, and the private sector: evidence from the chemical technology network in South Korea

As national R&D grows in scale, government-funded research institutes (GRIs) are being increasingly criticized for their low research productivity and the role of GRIs itself has become ambiguous. Hence, this study aims to investigate whether GRIs differ from universities or the private sector in terms of technological innovation and if so, how. This study also examines chemical technology as a case study, as technological innovation is active in this field and GRIs are present in relevant areas. Among the research and development projects registered in the National Science and Technology Information Service in South Korea, 4895 projects that used chemical technology were set as analysis targets: 560 projects with GRIs as the research agent, 4097 projects with universities as the research agent and 238 projects with the private sector as the research agent. Of the various indicators of technological innovation, this study examined the overall network structure characteristics and core technologies. The findings are as follows. First, GRIs and universities have similar core technologies, whereas they differ in overall network structure characteristics. Second, GRIs and the private sector have similar overall network structure characteristics, whereas they differ in terms of core technologies. These findings indicate that, at least in chemical technology, GRIs achieve technological innovation in a different form from universities and the private sector. The results of this study will likely provide implications for researchers and policymakers when establishing technological innovation policies for each research agent in the future.