- Cumulative pay improvement over past decade at 17.3%, falling short of 21.2% consumer price inflation

- Federation calls for base salary normalization to be reflected in next year's budget, estimating annual cost at around 100 billion won

Researchers work at a government-funded science and technology research institute. [Herald DB]
Researchers work at a government-funded science and technology research institute. [Herald DB]

Researchers at government-funded science and technology institutes are calling for a pay overhaul to close a wage gap that has widened over more than a decade. They argue that compensation improvements over the past 10 years have failed to keep pace even with consumer price inflation, and are demanding that base salary increases be factored into next year's budget deliberations.

The Korea Federation of Research and Development Institutes' Scientists and Engineers Associations issued a statement Monday saying the deterioration in compensation at government-funded research institutes "is not a grievance confined to individual institutions or a particular generation, but a signal that the foundational strength of the nation's science and technology competitiveness is being shaken."

The federation analyzed data from the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Personnel Management, the Ministry of Employment and Labor and Statistics Korea covering 2015 to 2024. It found that the cumulative 10-year improvement in compensation at government-funded research institutes stood at 17.27%, while civil servant pay rose 26.7%, total wages across all workers climbed 40.70% and consumer prices increased 21.2% over the same period.

Using 2014 as a baseline of 100, the total wage index for all workers reached approximately 141 by 2024 and civil servant pay rose to about 127, while compensation at government-funded institutes remained at roughly 117. On that basis, the federation said pay improvement at those institutes trailed the broader workforce by about 23 percentage points, fell about 9 percentage points behind civil servants and came in roughly 3.9 percentage points below consumer price inflation.

The federation particularly took issue with the fact that its demand for a roughly 10 percent base salary increase — framed as a normalization measure — was not included in the government's 2027 budget proposal. It said the possibility of a pay improvement had been raised during budget planning for both last year and this year, but was ultimately dropped each time, deepening a sense of relative deprivation among researchers.

"At a time when we must keep talented people working in research, the erosion of motivation on the ground is a loss for the entire nation," the federation said.

The federation also raised concerns about the government's planned overhaul of research allowances and performance bonuses. It said that if personnel costs are to be stably covered through government grants following the abolition of the project-based salary system, a portion of the research allowances paid out during project work should be incorporated into base salaries. It warned that converting research allowances into a performance-linked format could reduce the real income of some researchers.

The federation also called for a redesign of a special performance bonus scheme that selects the top 1 percent of researchers at highly rated institutions and awards them large bonuses. It argued that concentrating rewards on a tiny number of individuals while expanding large-scale collaborative research centered on national missions runs counter to policy direction.

The federation urged the National Assembly to include funding for base salary normalization in its budget review. It estimated the annual cost for government-funded institutes under the National Research Council of Science and Technology at around 100 billion won ($74 million), or about 2 percent of the 4.8 trillion won earmarked for support to those institutes in the 2027 budget.

"The process of abolishing the project-based salary system must not introduce additional competitive elements that create new forms of control and fragmentation," the federation said. "The necessary funding and institutional arrangements must be in place together for policy to succeed on the ground."


nbgkoo@heraldcorp.com