Korea Needs Strategic R&D Leaders, Not Just Star Scientists

As global competition for technological hegemony intensifies, the race for strategic technologies among nations is shifting toward securing top talent. In strategic fields such as artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors and quantum computing, the key technical challenges are concentrated in algorithms and system design rather than hardware, making the role of elite researchers who possess core knowledge and design capabilities increasingly critical. The emergence of China's DeepSeek model earlier this year, challenging OpenAI's ChatGPT dominance, signaled a shift in the global AI competitive landscape and underscored the importance of securing outstanding talent, particularly leader-level researchers.

The global talent market is undergoing significant changes, with advanced nations competing more fiercely for talent. As the United States tightens visa policies and cuts research and development (R&D) budgets, growing uncertainty in the research environment is increasing the likelihood of top researchers leaving the country. In response, Europe, Japan and China are intensifying policy support for domestic talent development while actively building strategies and systems to attract foreign researchers. Korea, however, is still seen as lacking the openness and environment needed to attract outstanding foreign talent. More concerning is the net outflow of AI talent, raising fears of brain drain in this critical strategic field.

Researchers cite job shortages as a primary reason for leaving Korea. There are not enough stable research positions relative to demand for outstanding doctoral graduates. Compensation levels for top talent also fall short of expectations, making domestic technology-related jobs relatively less attractive. Beyond these visible factors, Korea's unique social and structural issues also play a role. Specifically, leaders in science and technology fields have relatively lower social status and influence compared to their counterparts in other sectors.

In Korea's R&D sector, leader-researchers are typically defined and supported based on research output, centered on star scientists with excellent track records in specific fields. As a result, the number of such leader-researchers with outstanding research performance continues to grow. However, there is a severe shortage of director-level leaders capable of responsibly commanding large-scale R&D programs or sector-wide strategies. For scientific achievements in each field to translate into technological and industrial competitiveness, director-level leaders who can design vision and strategy by connecting technology, policy and industry are essential. Due to the shortage of strategic leaders in each field, there is a lack of higher-level strategic leaders who can link national strategy with technology. Instead, these roles are often filled by political scientists who lack the necessary learning and experience. This leads to insufficient political and social engagement by the science and technology community, contributing to the lower-than-expected social status and influence of scientists and engineers.

R&D leadership is needed at every level—from individual projects and laboratories to research institution management, sector-specific strategy development, and national innovation vision and strategy formulation. In reality, however, the leadership scope of Korean scientists and engineers remains confined to lower governance levels, such as projects or programs, with limited authority and responsibility like that of a Project Manager (PM). Even when benchmarking the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), attention focuses only on PM-level leadership, with no policy interest in the higher-level director leadership that designs and manages missions and strategies and selects and oversees PMs. Furthermore, heads of public research institutions often remain in managerial leadership roles, meaning strategic leadership capability is not a significant criterion in their selection.

Even outstanding research capability does not automatically develop leadership skills. To become a director-level leader, one must cultivate comprehensive judgment across diverse technologies and develop an eye for future technological visions, rather than specializing narrowly in a specific subfield. Additionally, capabilities are needed to link national policy objectives with technology and industry, and to strategically combine environmental development with external organizational resources. To develop these qualities, systematic education programs for leadership development must be operated, and the autonomous operational capacity of the research ecosystem must be enhanced to provide opportunities for learning and experiencing leadership growth into director-level roles.

The current leadership problem in Korea's science and technology community shares many similarities with Korean football. There is abundant talent, but outstanding coaches are rarely visible, and structural limitations prevent the systematic development of coach-level talent. The research field wants directors with excellent leadership capabilities, but there is a large gap between expectations and reality. When director-level leaders properly fulfill their roles, not only can research and innovation outcomes improve, but the development of the research ecosystem and society's perception and status of science and technology can also change.

If the shortage of strategic leadership at the national governance level persists, innovation competitiveness in strategic national fields will decline, making it difficult to respond to technological hegemony competition. An urgent paradigm shift is needed in national talent strategy—moving beyond developing outstanding players to securing directors and strategic leaders, while taking an integrated approach to science and technology talent.