Professor Jointly Managing Student Labor Costs... Court Rules "R&D Fund Recovery Justified"

The court ruled that it is justifiable to reclaim research and development funds from a professor who jointly managed the labor costs to be paid to graduate students.

Seoul Administrative Court.

On the 17th, the Administrative Division 1 of the Seoul Administrative Court (Chief Judge Yang Sang-yoon) ruled against former Yonsei University professor Lee Mo in a lawsuit he filed against the Rural Development Administration head, seeking cancellation of the decision to reclaim research and development funds.

The Yonsei University Industry-Academic Cooperation Foundation signed a collaborative research contract with the Rural Development Administration's National Agricultural Science Institute from 2015 to 2017, with Lee as the principal investigator. Accordingly, a total of 160 million KRW in research funds was provided. Subsequently, in March 2021, the Ministry of Education conducted an investigation on Yonsei University and determined that Lee jointly managed 37 million KRW of student labor costs by receiving part of the labor costs paid to graduate students related to the research project. According to the Korea Research Foundation's investigation, Lee used some of the public funds for labor costs of researchers not involved in the research, nurses, pathologists, and office workers, and also partially for gift expenses.

The Rural Development Administration identified that out of the 37 million KRW, Lee misused 16,502,000 KRW for purposes other than intended. They ordered Lee to return 8,251,000 KRW and imposed a penalty surcharge of 1,652,000 KRW. It was taken into consideration that Lee spent 37.8 million KRW of personal funds to cover the insufficient research funds. Lee filed a lawsuit in December 2022, claiming that this disposition was unjust.

However, the court did not accept Lee's claims. The bench stated, "Joint management of student labor costs is explicitly prohibited," adding, "This is to prevent the establishment and reinforcement of a subordinate relationship between the supervising professor and students through joint management of student labor costs, which negatively affects various academic activities conducted at universities."

Furthermore, the court emphasized, "The malpractice of jointly managing student labor costs has persisted without eradication," and "It is of great public interest for the defendant to impose appropriate sanctions as prescribed by law on the joint management act to correct this wrongful practice." The court also judged, "Lee jointly managed 37 million KRW of student labor costs from the research and development funds, and considering the scale, duration, repetitiveness, and intentionality, the degree of misconduct cannot be considered light."