자율적 연구개발을 위한 제도적 고찰

Abstract

Looking at Korea’s legal system regarding autonomy and accountability in R&D, accountability (including ethics) is mandatory while declaring innovation and autonomy in the Framework Act on Science and Technology, and subordinate laws such as the Performance Evaluation Act and Joint Management Regulations require specific implementation of accountability. The laws and ordinances on supervisory institutions such as the government and research councils list detailed compliance matters that R&D institutions and researchers must observe, and the guidelines of each individual research institution manage the compliance matters very specifically. The National R&D Innovation Act enacted this year (hereinafter referred to as the “Innovation Act”) also stipulates the autonomy and accountability of R&D. Rather than before, it stipulates accountability in detail, and there is a sense of neglect in ensuring autonomy. In the end, it can be seen that under the current legal system including the innovation law, autonomy in research and development is limited to lip services and only accountability is emphasized. Therefore, it would be necessary to revise the Innovation Law, and before the revision of the law, the sub-norm including the Enforcement Decree of the Innovation Law should be prepared as follows. In other words, it is necessary to design a system that supports autonomous and accountable research, and to materialize this system to make an institutional supplement to bring about a practical change in the operation method of national R&D projects. In this paper, first, the concept of research autonomy and the current legislation on research autonomy will be reviewed, and second, we will examine the autonomous R&D legislation in foreign countries and draw implications from them. Third, as an institutional plan for securing autonomy in R&D, the basic principles of regulation on R&D, the obligation to secure autonomy of R&D personnel, and measures to enhance R&D ethics to secure autonomy will be reviewed. Based on this, a plan for securing autonomy at each stage will be presented by dividing it into stages according to the sequential progress of R&D, such as the R&D task selection stage, R&D performance stage, R&D performance evaluation stage, and R&D performance management stage. Finally, in addition to the Innovation Act, measures to revise the Framework Act on Science and Technology, the Basic Science Promotion Act, and other related laws will be briefly mentioned.