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>President Lee made the remarks at the National Science Museum in Daejeon on the 7th after presiding over a public briefing session and a debate under the theme of "Korea Dreaming of Science and Technology Again." President Lee said, "Korea was one of the poorest countries, and the reason why people all over the world envy us in all fields, including economy, culture, politics and military, in a short time was because we studied hard," adding, "Even if we sell rice paddies, we have a senior generation's efforts to make a better world by studying our children."
In response, President Lee stressed that he will actively support scientists and engineers who are in trouble even if they are highly likely to fail to carry out R&D projects in a stable manner. The government has set aside 35.4 trillion won (3 billion U.S. dollars) in next year's R&D budget, an increase of 19.3 percent year-on-year, and submitted it to the National Assembly. This is the largest increase ever. "We have increased our budget to an unimaginable extent in the field of science and technology. In particular, we have decided to give (scientists) the freedom and the right to fail," President Lee said.
"It is absurd that the R&D success rate exceeds 90 percent," President Lee said. "Failures accumulate and become assets for success. We will create a proper R&D environment." At the same time, he confessed that if he had a good family environment, he wanted to try microbiology or nuclear engineering, not law.
More than 200 people attended the national briefing session, including science and engineering university students, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, parents, industry, academia, and associations. Government officials, including Yongbum Kim, chief of the presidential secretary's office's policy office, Jungwoo Ha, senior secretary for AI future planning, and Bae Kyounghun, deputy prime minister and minister of science and technology, information and communication.
President Lee stressed the need to innovate the R&D system to ensure that talented people flow into the scientific community in order for scientific and technological advancement to become an opportunity for national growth, and asked the government to make efforts to create an environment in which scientists and technicians are respected and given preferential treatment without fear of failure.

>Each year, the R&D budget will be expanded to 5% of the total government expenditure, and AI will be introduced in the investment management process to promote predictable and reasonable investment. It also plans to establish a system to collect, manage, and share research data, which is a valuable asset, so that researchers can study efficiently in a richer data environment, while introducing a regional autonomous R&D system to help technology-led growth blossom in the region and strengthening regional hub university research capabilities to the level of science and engineering.
"The previous government's R&D budget cuts undermined the science and technology ecosystem and accelerated the departure of talent," said Jungwoo Ha, senior presidential secretary for AI future planning. "In order to successfully secure excellent science and technology talents and create a researcher-centered R&D ecosystem, we will closely examine the implementation status of the policy and continue to discover new agendas to promote the second and third policy establishment."
Earlier, President Lee Jae-myung visited the Korea Institute of Nuclear Convergence Energy (KSTAR) research facility. He listened to the current status of nuclear fusion R&D, a future energy source, to cope with surging electricity demand and carbon neutrality in the AI era, and encouraged researchers for their hard work. With the world-class superconducting fusion research device, KSTAR achieved the world record of maintaining and operating plasma for a long time (48 seconds with an ion temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius).
Reporter Lim Chul-young cylim@asiae.co.kr

A president who knows very well what the real role of government is.

Five years of good luck have come to us.