South Korea’s thriving research base could be propelled to new heights if its next president makes good on her election promises. Park Geun-hye narrowly defeated her rival, Moon Jae-in, in the presidential election on 19 December, and will become the country’s first female president when she takes office on 25 February.

Sixty-year-old Park, who studied electronic engineering at Sogang University in Seoul, pledged during her campaign that science and technology policy would become the cornerstone of her government’s work.

Park’s conservative Saenuri Party, which forms South Korea’s current government under President Lee Myung-bak, plans to increase the total expenditure on research and development to five per cent of the gross domestic product by 2017, up from four per cent in 2011.
The government’s investment in basic science will rise from 35.2 per cent of that total to 40 per cent by 2017, Park said. She also aims to set up a new overarching 'ministry of future innovative science', which would be separate from the current Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, reports Nature