In 1992, the Korean government embarked on a new national R & D programme (NRDP), called the Highly Advanced National(HAN) Projects. HAN Projects, characterized of large-scale, leading and long-term R & D programme towards the 21st century, are well planned, result-oriented, systematically managed, and facilitating cooperation among members of the national system of innovation(NSI) and among government ministries.
This thesis reviews the background, objectives, characteristics, management processes and policy implications of HAN Projects. And also this thesis examines and analyzes the major influencing factors on the planning, execution, and evaluating process of HAN Projects by the types of the degree of systemization and end goal of HAN Projects.
The data related to the planning process have been obtained from 130 experts including planning team leaders participated in research planning of 13 HAN Project's candidates, and the data related to the execution and evaluating process have been obtained from 326 researchers of 10 HAN Projects, including project leaders. 4 cases are studied at the same time.
The major findings of this thesis can be summarized as follows :
Firstly, the appropriated research planning system for the national R & D programme(NRDP) is suggested. The principles and contents of research planning process have been analyzed and summarized as research planning guidelines, which include (1)principle of pursucing the priority of national goals, (2)principle of impartiality and publicity, (3)principle of promoting competition, (4)principle of specialty, (5)principle of diversifying technology acquisition strategies, (7)principle of flexibility and systematization, (8)principle of power of execution through the research planning.
Secondly, by the types of the degree of systemization and end goal of NRDP, the major factors influencing the success/failure of research planning process of NRDP are distinguished and characterized specifically. Especially in this thesis, 4 types of NRDP are classified : (1)systematic/fundamental technology development program type, (2)systematic/product technology development program type, (3)collective/fundamental technology development program type, (4)collective/product technology development program type.
Thirdly, the structureand climate of research planing team/R & D execution team are significantly important to the successful performance of planning and execution of R&D programmes. Futhermore, the roles of project leaders are significantly distinguished by the types of the degree of systemization.
Fourthly, the importance of performance management skills, especially management by objectives(MBO), procedure and schedule management, and incentive management system during the project execution is stressed. And it has been retrieved the way how to improve the total R & D programme execution system, which include (1)formulating national R & D strategy of great vision with mid-term time horizon (2)operating principles for R & D planning such as changing focus of planning activities in various situations, (3)operating principles for R & D execution such as selecting the appropriate R & D teams on the basis of open competition or package dealing system, (4)expanding and strengthening the international technology cooperation including technological alliances, (5)improving and systemizing the performance management skills, (6)operating principles for R & D evaluation such as strengthening the "program evaluation", (7)functions and operations of specialized R & D planning and evaluation institutes(RDPEI) with autonomy and capabilities.
Finally, political perspective during the selecting, executing, and evaluating NRDP are examined and it is suggested that more efforts are required for reducing the political perspective.
This thesis is an exploratory study on the NRDP management system of a newly industrializing country, Korea. It is necessary to replicate this study to other NRDPs cross-sectionally, and necessary to perform the comparative studies between many large-scale projects among various countries. Therefore more case studies and further theoretical works would be very helpful. The results and guidelines suggested in this thesis will be useful not only for the planning and R&D executing activities for NRDP including HAN Projects but also for understanding and formulating the technology development processes and strategies for both government and private sector.