South Korea's science and technology capabilities ranks 12, which is unchanged from last year, among the 30-strong Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). South Korea's R&D investments as a percentage of GDP are relatively high, but its business-to-business (B2B) and international cooperation in the fields of science and technology underperformed compared to other OECD nations.
Since 2006, the Korean government has released a Composite Science Technology Innovation Index (COSTII) report to evaluate OECD nations science and technology capabilities in a comprehensive manner. The evaluation is based on COSTII points calculated by examining 31 different categories covering five areas such as resources, research environments, networks, R&D activities, and performance, and by making comparisons between 30 OECD nations.
South Korea received a total of 11.28 points (on a scale of 0-31) in the COSTII report, which is higher than the OECD's average of 9.64.
South Korea's ranking in the COSTII report has remained the same since 2007, but when the benchmark (the U.S. with the highest COSTII) is set at 100, South Korea's relative COSTII has continued to inch up, with 52.9 percent in 2007, 53.5 percent in 2008, and 57.5 percent in 2009. In the area of R&D activities, which include total R&D investments as a percentage of GDP and corporate R&D investments vis-à-vis industrial value addedness, South Korea performed well, slotting into fifth place. It, however, scored poorly, finishing in 16 in the area of networks, which encompasses international cooperation and B2B collaboration.
