Korea to Establish a ‘Korean DARPA’ Dedicated to High-Risk, High-Impact R&D — Launch of an ‘Innovation Research Planning Agency’ Underway

Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology Unveils Strategy to Reform Korea’s Challenge- and Innovation-Oriented National R&D System

Government Concludes Existing High-Risk R&D Programs Have Limitations in Delivering Breakthrough Innovation — Plans to Institutionalize Dedicated R&D Organizations to Accumulate Expertise, Following Overseas Models

The Korean government is moving to establish a new organization, tentatively called the Institute for Innovative Research Planning (IIRP), dedicated to the planning and management of high-risk, high-impact research and development (R&D).

The proposed organization is modeled after the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), widely regarded as a driving force behind breakthrough innovation. The IIRP would oversee challenge-driven R&D programs across government ministries.

The initiative reflects growing recognition that Korea’s existing challenge-oriented R&D programs have faced structural limitations. Many have been launched as temporary, budget-based projects and then discontinued, making it difficult to accumulate long-term expertise, institutional knowledge, and effective project management capabilities.

According to the science and technology community on the 24th, the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology recently discussed the proposal as part of its agenda on a “Strategy for Reforming Korea’s Challenge- and Innovation-Oriented National R&D System.”

Rather than continuing to rely primarily on individual R&D programs that have shown limitations in generating breakthrough innovation, the government plans to establish a dedicated institution capable of accumulating technological expertise and program-management know-how over time.

Under the proposed strategy, the IIRP would initially be established as an affiliated organization within an existing R&D management agency.

It would operate under a three-tier structure consisting of an agency head, division heads, and project managers (PMs). To ensure organizational autonomy, the government is considering financing the institute through separate government contributions or dedicated funds.

In the longer term, the government plans to develop the IIRP into an independent agency or government organization, using the newly established Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) as a model.

The shift toward establishing a new dedicated agency appears to reflect the government’s assessment that previous R&D programs modeled after DARPA have failed to deliver meaningful breakthrough outcomes.

In fact, the Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology concluded that Korea’s challenge- and innovation-oriented R&D programs produced limited results last year, despite receiving KRW 436.7 billion, equivalent to 1.4% of the country’s total R&D budget of KRW 31.1 trillion.

Over the past three years, a range of DARPA-inspired programs have been launched, including the Innovation Challenge Project of the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Alchemist Project of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the Future Challenge Defense Technology Development Program of the Defense Acquisition Program Administration.

Additional initiatives were introduced last year, including the Ministry of Science and ICT’s Limit-Challenge R&D Project and the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Korean ARPA-H Project. However, the advisory council determined that these fragmented, program-based approaches faced significant structural limitations.

In particular, the council noted that even when strategic objectives were established at the national level, it remained difficult to design top-down projects in which the government directly identifies and defines priority missions. Dedicated institutional frameworks and support organizations were also lacking.

The government also appears to have drawn lessons from other major economies that have created dedicated DARPA-style agencies to overcome the limitations of conventional R&D systems.

Following the success of DARPA, the United States established additional specialized agencies, including the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) under the Department of Energy. Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan have likewise established independent organizations or dedicated entities to pursue high-risk, high-impact research.

The Presidential Advisory Council expects that creating a dedicated agency and establishing a mid- to long-term operational plan would enable the government to secure more stable funding and maintain consistent investment strategies over time.

As part of this effort, the government is also considering the use of a multi-year continuing appropriation system, which would allow funding for several years of project expenditures to be secured in advance.

Source: Yonhap News Agency