  This study examines the longitudinal trend of systemness in networked
research relations in South Korea using a triple-helix (TH) indicator of
university-industry-government (UIG) relations. The data were harvested from
the Science Citation Index (SCI) and its counterparts in the social sciences
(SSCI) and the arts and humanities (A&HCI). The total number of Korean SCI
publications has grown rapidly since 1965. However, the TH indicator shows that
the network dynamics have varied considerably according to the research
policies of the national government. The collaboration patterns, as measured by
co-authorship relations in the SCI noticeably increased, with some variation,
from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s. However, inter-institutional collaboration
in the first decade of the 21st century was negatively influenced by the new
national science and technology (S&T) research policies that evaluated domestic
scientists and research groups based on their international publication numbers
rather than on the level of cooperation among academic, private, and public
domains. The results reveal that Korea has failed to boost its national
research capacity by neglecting the network effects in science, technology, and
industry.
