Science Towns—Korea
Yeongu danji are South Korean science towns, also known as science parks. Such parks can be either private undertakings, as in Silicon Valley in the United States, or public undertakings and generally have four major sets of political and economic objectives: (1) forge links among universities, private industrial enterprises' research, and industrial production operations, and state-run research and development facilities to gain synergistic effects through frequent contact; (2) promote knowledgebased businesses in high technology and new ("sunrise") industries; (3) facilitate the transfer of technology from research and development to production operations and encourage corporate start-ups, spin-off companies, new corporate divisions, and "incubator" companies where researchers gain experience before launching their own enterprises; and (4) pursue a grab bag of state policy goals, such as promoting export industries and boosting economic development in laggard regions.
South Korea's Taedok Science Town (TST) was established in Taejon by the Ministry of Science and Technology in 1973 to concentrate state-run laboratories and to provide a conducive site for corporate research and development. Due to the energy crisis and budgetary problems late in the Fourth Republic (1972–1980), major construction was delayed until the 1980s. TST was not formally dedicated until 1992, and major corporate research did not begin until 1994. The Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Korea's premier technical institute, has its main campus in TST. The LG Group's biotechnology research since the mid-1990s has been centered at TST. During the 1980s, the government decided to establish a science town in each of the major regions of Korea, but currently only the small Kwangju Science Town in South Cholla Province has been opened.
Further Reading
Choi, Hyung Sup. (1986) "Science and Technology Policies for Industrialization of Developing Countries." Technological Forecasting and Social Change 29: 225–239.
——. (1986) Technology Development in Developing Countries. Tokyo: Asian Productivity Organization.
Lee, Chong-ouk. (1991) "Stages of Economic Development and Technology Policy: The Experience of Korea." Science and Public Policy 18, 4: 219–224.
Taedok Science Town Administration Office. (1996) Taedok Science Town. Taejon, South Korea: Ministry of Science and Technology.
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