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Without respect for science, there will be no Nobel Prizes — nor national future

Published: 10 Oct. 2025, 00:00

Kyoto University professor Susumu Kitagawa speaks during a news conference at the university in Kyoto, near Osaka, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, after he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. [AP/YONHAP]

With Nobel season upon us, Korea again found itself looking to Japan. Over the Chuseok holiday, announcements on Oct. 6, 7, and 8 named Japanese scholars as co-winners of both the medicine and chemistry prizes. Since Hideki Yukawa took the physics prize in 1949, Japan has produced 27 Nobel laureates in the sciences. This year, Osaka University’s Shimon Sakaguchi shared the physiology or medicine prize, and Kyoto University’s Susumu Kitagawa shared the chemistry prize. Sakaguchi identified regulatory T cells and clarified immune tolerance mechanisms, opening new paths to treat autoimmune diseases. Kitagawa advanced metal — organic frameworks, enabling materials that can draw water from even arid air.

Each October, Korea suffers a bout of “Nobel fever,” especially when a Japanese laureate appears and the familiar lament follows: why not us? Yet Japan’s results rest on steady, early investment in basic science. RIKEN, its flagship institute, was founded in 1917. Even their first Nobel Prize in 1949 came after decades of scientific accumulation. Successive policy plans reinforced continuity, including targets set in the early 2000s to foster dozens of laureates over the long term.

Korea launched the Institute for Basic Science in 2011, modeled in spirit on RIKEN. But the course has wavered with changes of government, and the last administration’s deep cuts to research and development forced labs to close and pushed young scientists out of the field. The medical school boom siphons talent from science and engineering. Having the world’s lowest birthrate is shrinking the pool of future researchers. These headwinds can be overcome only with predictable funding and a culture that puts scientists first.

The delay has reasons rooted in history. Rising from colonial rule and war, the country pursued catch-up strategies in technology and industry. That approach lifted per capita income above $30,000. The next stage is different. Breakthroughs in physics, chemistry and biomedicine demand patience, stable institutions and tolerance for failure. Basic research must be insulated from election cycles and measured by discovery as well as commercialization.

Policy must also bridge lab and market. Korea needs reliable paths from government labs and universities to startups and industry, with intellectual property and finance frameworks that reward translation without distorting inquiry. Japan’s present search for new growth engines, despite its Nobel pedigree, reminds us that prestige alone is not enough.

Nobels do not guarantee prosperity. But nations that compete for them usually value curiosity, method and time. Respect for scientists, stable support and patient investment are not luxuries. They are preconditions for a future laureate and for the country’s next economic chapter.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.