Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
KAIST president Shin to keep his post
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Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) President Shin Sung-chul attends the board meeting at the Eltower in Yangjae-dong, southern Seoul, Friday. / Yonhap
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) President Shin Sung-chul will keep his post after the board decided Friday to defer the voting on whether to suspend him.
The board meeting was in response to a Ministry of Science and ICT's demand to suspend Shin for allegedly embezzling money from the national research fund when he was Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST) president in 2014.
Shin denied the accusations, but the science ministry also filed a complaint with the prosecution.
“During the board meeting, the claims of the two sides from the government and the school were in opposition to each other, but they agreed to postpone the suspension voting,” a KAIST spokesman told reporters at the Eltower in southern Seoul.
The school said the issue would be discussed at the next board meeting. KAIST is scheduled to hold its regular board meeting in early 2019.
The board of trustees consists of 10 board members, three officio members from the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Education. Shin is also a board member, but he was excluded from the discussion because the issue was directly related to him, KAIST said.
The spokesman said the officio members stressed the need for suspension while members from the school opposed this.
“Board members from the school expressed that it was excessive to suspend Shin because nothing has been decided about the allegations,” he said.
The board members' decision to delay the voting is being seen as a sign that the ministry and government may have felt pressured because there has been a strong backlash from science communities here and overseas.
A group of KAIST professors, led by mechanical engineering professor Lee Seung-seop, also protested against the ministry's stand, saying Shin should be given an opportunity to prove himself.
“Given the heavy responsibility and influence of the KAIST president, the issue regarding the post should be carefully decided,” the professor group said in a statement on Dec. 13.
An alumni association comprised of KAIST alumni working in Silicon Valley in the United States also announced a petition supporting Shin.
The British science magazine Nature also reported the news. It is rare for the magazine to cover a scandal involving a science community in another country.
In an online posting on Dec. 13, the magazine reported “some researchers see the KAIST affair as part of an ongoing political purge of public science institutes by the liberal Moon Jae-in administration.
“Many scientists suspect that the allegations are part of a politically motivated attempt to remove Shin, who was hired under the previous administration. The call to suspend him seems to have been rushed and is based on insufficient evidence, they say.”
Shin has been the school's president since February 2017, having been appointed by the Park Geun-hye government.
After conducting an inspection, the science ministry concluded Shin recruited his former student―identified only by his surname Lim ― as a professor without going through due procedures. Lim then received about 140 million won ($127,000) in wages over three years, although he did not participate in any research projects.
Shin was also accused of sending 2.2 billion won from a public fund to a U.S. research center, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). Shin said the money was necessary to use the U.S. research laboratory's equipment, but the ministry said the equipment could be used for free.
The ministry said more than half of the money was believed to be paid to Lim, adding that this was an improper act aimed at financially benefiting his former student.
According to Nature, the LBNL wrote to the ministry saying there was no dual contract between the U.S. research lab and DGIST.