» thick fog sets in around the Sejong City construction site.

The Lee administration’s revisions for the Sejong City Development Plan, which have transformed the plan for a second administrative city into a plan for an “education and science-centered economic city” and a “green industrial, academic and research cluster,” are showing signs of hasty construction. Among the 22 local and overseas research institutes mentioned by the Lee administration as possible candidates for moving to the city, there are some with which the Lee administration have not even held concrete talks as well as those that are moving to a different region as a result of other local governmental incentives.

The research institutes cited by the Prime Minister’s Office Sejong City planning team include 16 economic, humanities and social research teams. Among them are the Korea Development Institute (KDI), the Korea Labor Institute (KLI) and the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs (KIHASA), as well as the second campus of the Korea Research Council of Fundamental Science & Technology’s National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI), the Korea Institute of R&D Human Resources Development (KIRD) and a branch of the Korea Institute for High Science (KIAS). The planning team also has a plan to persuade three foreign institutes, the International Vaccine Institute (IVI), the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics (APCTP) and the Max Planck Society to move to the city.

According to the 16 state run research institutes like KDI that work with a government ministry, it would be difficult to move to Sejong city if government ministries fail to also move offices to Sejong. As a result, the planning team has attached a clause to the Sejong City plan revisions, saying that it needs to consider linking the proposal to relocate research institutes to the plan of moving government ministry offices. A key planning team official who responded to questions on this matter said this means they need to reopen discussions over the problems that may arise if the research institutes are relocated far away from the ministries. The official added, however, “This is not a sign that the government is not serious about moving all of the research institutes to Sejong."

Most of the research institute officials, meanwhile, are stating that they have no idea what the Lee administration is talking about. They are wondering how the Lee administration, which has cited a drop in efficiency caused by an increase in distance between ministries as a reason to alter the original Sejong City Development Plan, could then proceed to relocate them so far away from the ministries.

The foreign research institutes the Lee administration is referencing as targets for relocation are also skeptical of the new Sejong City plan. An official from IVI, a UNDP institute currently located at Seoul National University’s Research Park, said they have never received an official or internal offer. He said they have no plans as of now to move to Sejong City, and even if they do move, it would require the approval of their board of directors that is comprised of representatives from several nations.

Two of the foreign research institutes mentioned in the plan have been targeted with incentives to move to other regions. For example, APCTP moved its headquarters from Seoul to POSTECH in Pohang, Gyeongsangbuk-do Province in 2001, while a Gyeongsangbuk-do/Pohang joint committee set up in August of last year is attempting to lure the Max Planck Society.

An official from Gyeongsangbuk-do Province says the APCTP has settled down for the past eight years in POSTECH, and they have been busy working with the research community of Pohang to lure the Max Planck Society to come join them. He says that Lee administration officials know full well that even considering moving these institutes to Sejong City is absurd.　

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]