Science ministry overhauls national R&D portal to cut paperwork for researchers

South Korea's science ministry said Friday it is overhauling the national research support portal used for state-funded projects, aiming to cut the time researchers spend on paperwork by automating publication registration and adding mobile access to 24 services.

The Ministry of Science and ICT said the redesign of the Integrated Research Support System, known as IRIS, follows complaints about excessive manual data entry, complicated screen navigation and services that could not be used on mobile devices. The changes cover four main areas.

The most substantive change is to publication reporting. IRIS is now linked to the Web of Science academic database and the National Researcher Information system, so a researcher who enters only a paper's DOI or ISSN will have its title, authors and journal name filled in automatically. The ministry expects this to cut the time spent registering results and to reduce typos and omissions that arose when details were typed by hand.

On mobile, the ministry has added 24 dedicated services covering project announcements, the status of applications and agreements, and research funding payments. Researchers can also handle routine consent procedures, such as agreeing to research ethics requirements, on a phone rather than a PC, and a new notification function pushes key deadlines to their devices.

The ministry has also aligned the wording and layout of the screens with the standard forms set out under the National Research and Development Innovation Act, placing required fields earlier in the input sequence. Screen guidance has been gathered into a single information box and a help button, while a new pop-up window shows a project plan in full and collapsible sections let researchers open only the parts of a budget screen they need.

IRIS has handled project applications, evaluations, budget management and performance reporting online since it opened in January 2022.

"This IRIS UI/UX overhaul is significant in that it has created a digital working environment that is easy for researchers to use, by putting the voices of the research field, which have complained about complex administrative procedures and the inconvenience of direct input, first," said Park In-kyu, head of the ministry's science and technology innovation office.

The system has been running in a pilot since mid-October, during which the ministry is checking that it holds up under simultaneous connections. It plans to distribute an online user guide and conduct a satisfaction survey before finalising the redesign.