An association between the Brain Korea 21 Program and the growth of the number of faculty members in Korean universities

• In Event: Education, prestige and funding policies in education

Proposal

To enhance research capacity of higher education institutions, many countries have introduced science policies (Chang & Shaw, 2015; Chapman & Chien, 2015; Fu et al., 2020). South Korea has also implemented the Brain Korea 21 (hereafter BK21) Program since 1999 to enhance research capacity of Korean universities. Many studies found that the government policy increased the number of papers from Korean universities (Kim, 2019; Shin, 2009; Suh & Park, 2014). In addition to expanding research production, these policies also aim at augmenting human resources that can conduct research. Less examined was how those policies were associated with the increase in the number of researchers (Yu, 2024). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of BK21 on the growth of the number of faculty members of Korean universities, who are a major workforce that conducts and produces research. This analysis will evaluate the effect of the policy that has been mostly overlooked and provide policymakers in the world that are willing to implement similar programs with some implications.
It is commonly found that BK21 had a positive association with increasing the number of research papers and graduate students (Huang & Wang, 2018; Hur & Bessey, 2013; Kang, 2015; Seol, 2012; Shin et al., 2008; Suh & Park, 2014). The scholarship from the policy motivated students to pursue graduate study (Suh & Park, 2014). In addition, the policy helped graduate students to be more successful in the job market (Seol, 2012). However, some studies found that the policy was not correlated with the increase in the number of graduate students (Yu, 2024). Moreover, these studies did not examine the faculty members.
To achieve the goal, this study analyzed the dataset that Yu (2024) used. Yu (2024) modified the dataset that was originally used by Yu (2023). This dataset included data from the research paper information in STEM fields from the Web of Science data from the Science Productivity Higher Education and Research Economy Project (SPHERE) dataset (Baker et al., 2015) and the Korean Education Statistics Service (KESS) by the Korean Educational Development Institute (KEDI). Yu (2024) revised the data by incorporating the number of research teams by universities that received research grants from the BK21 Program. The number of research groups was obtained from the white papers of the BK21 Program.
This study conducted growth curve modeling. This study adopted an intercepts- and slopes-as-outcomes model (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002). The dependent variable was the number of full-time faculty members in STEM fields. The main independent variable was the number of research groups that were selected by the BK21 Program. The control variables were two binary variables that indicated whether the university was non-research university or not and whether the university was private or not, the number of undergraduate students, the number of graduate students, and the number of papers. The number of BK21 research teams lagged by two years (Choi & Namkoong, 2010). The number of undergraduate and graduate students and papers reflected the previous year’s data. All continuous variables were log transformed to adjust the skewness of the variables (Barnett et al., 2014; Schofer, 2004; Shin & Cummings, 2010). This study analyzed data between 2001 and 2011 when the higher education in Korea rapidly expanded (Yu, 2024).
First, the descriptive statistics showed that, on average, 318 Korean universities in the dataset had approximately 117 faculty members in STEM fields. On average, over the 10 years, Korean universities each had one BK21 research team.
Second, the unconditional model showed that the growth of the number of faculty members in Korean universities was exponential. Therefore, the conditional models only included the quadratic growth term. In model 1 where the number of research groups of BK21 was conditioned, the number of faculty members in 2000 was not statistically significant for both the initial status and the growth rate. This means that the number of faculty members were similar across BK21 and non-BK21 universities. Furthermore, the growth rate of the number of faculty members was not different between BK21 and non-BK21 universities. In model 2, where all control variables except the previous research production were included, non-research universities had a smaller number of faculty members in the initial year. Private universities and universities that had a larger number of undergraduate and graduate students had a greater number of faculty members in 2001. On the other hand, non-research universities and the number of undergraduate students had a negative association with the growth of the number of faculty members. The effect of BK21 was not statistically significant on the growth of the number of professors. In model 3, when the number of previous year’s research papers was conditioned, universities with greater research production in a previous year had a larger number of faculty members in 2001. While non-research university and the number of undergraduate students still had a negative correlation with the growth of the number of faculty members, the effect of the BK21 and the previous research production was not statistically significant.
This study has found that the Korean government’s science policy did not have a significant effect on the growth of the number of faculty members in Korean universities. Instead, being a non-research university and the number of undergraduate students had a negative association with the growth of the number of faculty members. This outcome may have resulted from social and economic changes, such as the economic downturn in the late 1990s, the expansion of higher education, and the advent of the knowledge-based economy (Shin et al., 2008). This change may have encouraged non-research universities to hire more faculty members. Due to several factors, however, including financial issues, non-research universities could not hire enough faculty members as the number of students increased. Research universities would have had more opportunities of employing new faculty members, which would further have prevented non-research universities from hiring professors. This result implies that policymakers should consider external factors that can alter the effect of the policies when they are designing a relevant policy.

Author

• Wan Yu, Chung Ang University