**Representative Han Min-soo: 189 Cases of Research Fraud in the Past 5 Years**
**79 Cases Involved Unrecovered Research Funds Despite Fraudulent Findings**
“It has been revealed that the Korea Research Foundation is reluctant to recover funds from research declared fraudulent. Over the past five years, the amount of unrecovered research funds exceeds 170 billion won.”
“On the 17th, Representative Han Min-soo from the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee of the National Assembly (Democratic Party of Korea) revealed data received from the Korea Research Foundation. From 2020 to this year, 189 cases of research were sanctioned for fraud.”
“Among these, funds were recovered in only 110 cases. In the remaining 79 cases, funds were not recovered despite fraudulent findings.”
“In terms of amount, the total research funds for fraudulent research (189 cases) over the five years amounted to 176.92125 billion won, whereas only 3.3 billion won was recovered (110 cases). Unrecovered funds stand at 173.5 billion won.”
“When looking at types of fraudulent research, misuse of research and development funds was the most common at 99 cases, followed by research abandonment (48 cases), research misconduct (26 cases), contract violations (7 cases), result falsification (7 cases), and false or fraudulent contract bidding (2 cases).”
“Examining the refunded amounts by type, the total research funds for 99 cases caught using development funds inappropriately was 111.12688 billion won. However, only 2.9244 billion won was recovered. Among this, 381.92 million won is under litigation and yet to be recovered.”
“In addition, the total funds for 26 cases caught for research misconduct such as paper falsification amounted to 32.7382 billion won, but the recovered amount was just 77.49 million won. Similarly, for research that violated agreements, the total research funds were 7.38526 billion won, while the recovered amount was merely 137 million won, indicating the Korea Research Foundation’s lack of proactive response in fund recovery for fraudulent research.”
“Representative Han Min-soo emphasized, ‘Recovering research funds from fraudulent research should be viewed as a restoration process that must be prioritized over punishment.’ He urged, ‘Separate from disciplinary actions like participation restrictions, there should be an active effort to recover funds from fraudulent research.'”