By Kang Shin-who
Staff Reporter
The job of professor in Korea is not as stable as before with a growing number of universities introducing corporate-style assessment and incentive schemes. Following some universities' movements to disclose assessments of their professors by students, a top science university is relieving some professors of their jobs due to poor research achievements.
According to Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), six professors of the school failed to have their jobs renewed.
It is the first termination due to a lack of academic ability at Korean universities. In most universities, a professorship is still considered a lifelong job.
So far, universities have assessed professors' performance every three years when contracts are renewed except ``tenure professors,'' whose employment period is guaranteed. But it used to be a sort of rubber-stamp screening and professors have rarely lost jobs regardless of their research achievements.
A total of 25 professors applied to renew their contracts at the school at the end of last year. School president Suh Nam-pyo terminated the contracts of six of them and he granted only 2-year terms to two other professors, which means they are likely not to get their contracts renewed (depending on their achievements) after the term.
However, the school will offer a one-year grace period to the professors so that they can find other jobs. A popular professor implicated in research fabrication is also included in the list.
According to the school, its investigative committee found that Bioscience professor Kim Tae-kook used bogus data in two papers published in Science and Nature Chemicalbiology between 2005 and 2006.
KAIST head Suh has made it clear that he would introduce incentives and evaluation systems since his inauguration in 2006. Suh has said that the school will provide handsome rewards to professors with excellent achievements, while tenure status will be denied to those who perform badly. Last year, about 40 percent of tenure applicants were rejected during evaluations.