Science ministry to open anonymous text line for researchers' complaints

South Korea's science ministry said Tuesday it will begin pilot operations on Nov. 4 of an anonymous text-message channel through which researchers can air complaints and suggestions about government R&D programs without identifying themselves.

Researchers can send a message to a dedicated number, 1551-1441, from any mobile phone, without visiting a website, installing an app or going through identity verification, according to the ministry's release. The channel accepts short and long text messages as well as multimedia messages with photos attached.

The ministry said it built the service, called R&D Bamboo Forest, because existing online channels require names, affiliations and researcher identification numbers, which it said could make people hesitant to speak frankly.

The last four digits nod to 1441, the year the world's first rain gauge was developed. The ministry said it chose the number to evoke King Sejong the Great, who used rainfall measurements from across the country to inform policy.

Sender numbers will be encrypted as soon as messages reach its servers, so that neither the officials managing the messages nor the analysts studying them can identify who wrote them, the ministry said.

Incoming opinions will be sorted by artificial intelligence, which will classify the type of comment, the technology field involved and the prevailing sentiment, the ministry said. The results will be compiled weekly and monthly to track recurring complaints and emerging issues, with a separate analysis of the cause and on-the-ground acceptability when comments about a particular policy spike over a short period. The findings will feed into policy and institutional improvements rather than draw individual replies.

The ministry said it will also publish periodically cases in which submitted opinions led to concrete changes, that researchers can see how their input travels into policy.

"Even a small inconvenience or a single idea a researcher feels in the field contains an important clue that can move R&D policy in a better direction," First Vice Minister Koo Hyuk-chae said. He added that the government would work to ensure the views it receives lead to actual changes in policy and institutions.