The First Research Council Conference of Digital Transformation Megatrend

- Search for the digital policy direction and future changes jointly with academia, research, and new government

ㅇ Date: July 5, 2022 (Tue.) at 5:00 p.m.

ㅇ Venue: EL Tower in Seoul

The Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI) kicked off the First Research Council Meeting of Digital Transformation Megatrend at EL Tower in Seoul on July 5 (Tue.) jointly with the Ministry of Science and ICT.

This conference aims to share the prospective research status and contents conducted by institutions to use them as the foundational data for mid-to-long-term policymaking and converge the opinions of academia and research societies regarding the digital policy strategic direction such as the “Digital National Strategies” currently in planning. At this meeting, six research institutions, namely KISDI, the Institute for Information & Communication Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP), National Information Society Agency (NIA), Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI), and the Software Policy & Research Institute (SPRi) participated along with the presidents of 10 academic associations*.

* The Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences, the Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers, the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea, Korea Association for Telecommunications Policies, the Leading Future Agendas of Business & Society, the Korean Political Science Association, the Korean Association for Public Administration, the Korea Association for Policy Studies, the Korean Sociological Association, and Korea Environmental Policy and Administration Society.

The Research Council was convened this year for the first time to share information on future prospective research, which had been conducted separately by the academic and research communities, and increase synergy by linking and cooperating with each other.

The research on the Digital Transformation Megatrend by KISDI, which is the representative prospect research, has been promoted since the previous year to forecast the macro effect of the accelerating digital transformation at present on not only the information and communication field but also the Korean economy and society, along with a search for the response direction. At this conference, eight academic associations in the fields of politics, public administration, society, and information and communication policies participated.

Ho-yeong Lee, who is the senior researcher at KISDI and the person in charge of overall digital megatrend research, proposed three directions to pursue: fairer recovery, ethical innovation, and equitable transformation in his presentation titled “The Way to a Digital Mutual Prosperity Society”. At present, research on digital innovation (NIA), promising technologies and future scenarios (IITP), national R&D investment strategy (ETRI), information protection (KISA), and software industry (SPRI) are well-underway in each field.

At this conference, the strategic direction in promoting the “Digital National Strategy”, which will be established and announced this year, has been discussed in depth by summarizing the mid-to-long-term strategic directions and government-led activities to achieve the goal of a “Nation with Digital Economy Hegemony” as the digital national vision of the new government. Yun-gyu Park, the 2nd Vice Minister of Science and ICT encouraged the prospective research being conducted this year for not only proposing the mid-to-long-term direction for a plausible future vision in this digital transformation era, but also serving as the foundation of digital policymaking of the new government. He also expressed his hope that academia and research community work together to conduct research to examine what impact digital transformation will have on our economy and society from an integrated perspective and come up with policy suggestions.