quality:corruption, linguistic:paraphrasing, structural:scholar_edition, information:extraction, structural:expansion
Science and technology

Scientific and technological development in South Korea at first did not occur largely because of more pressing matters such as the division of Korea and the Korean War that occurred right after its independence. It was not until the 1960s under the dictatorship of Park Chung Hee where South Korea's economy rapidly grew from industrialization and the chaebol corporations such as Samsung, LG, and SK. Ever since the industrialization of South Korea's economy, South Korea has placed its focus on technology-based corporations, which has been supported by infrastructure developments by the government.

South Korea leads the OECD in graduates in science and engineering. From 2014 to 2019, the country ranked first among the most innovative countries in the Bloomberg Innovation Index. It was ranked 10th in the Global Innovation Index in 2023 down from 5th in 2022. South Korea today is known as a launchpad of a mature mobile market, where developers can reap benefits of a market where very few technology constraints exist. There is a growing trend of inventions of new types of media or apps, utilizing the 4G and 5G internet infrastructure in South Korea. South Korea has the infrastructures to meet a density of population and culture that has the capability to create strong local particularity.

Total spending for research and development grew from about 3.9% of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013 to more than 4.9% in 2022 and was thus the second-highest in the world, only behind Israel which spent 5.9%. In 2023 the government announced a spending cut by about 11% for 2024 and the intention to shift resources to new initiatives, such as efforts to build rockets, pursue biomedical research, and develop US-style biotech innovation.