Does Big R&D Spending Actually Attract Top Talent?

Does spending more on R&D mean attracting more talent?

Korea is a country that pours enormous resources into research and development. According to the OECD, Korea’s R&D spending came in at about 5% of GDP in 2023 — the second-highest ratio among OECD member states, trailing only Israel. And yet, in the 2025 Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) published by INSEAD and the Portulans Institute, Korea’s overall ranking was 31st.

The two indicators measure different things. The R&D-to-GDP ratio tells you how much a country invests in research and development; the GTCI looks at the conditions and capabilities involved in developing, attracting, and retaining talent. The gap between the two rankings doesn’t by itself prove that Korea’s research spending is being wasted. Still, looking at that gap made me feel we need to examine what conditions we’re actually offering researchers, beyond just the scale of investment.

While the research environment in the United States has grown more unstable, France opened a support program for researchers coming from abroad, and China introduced a new visa for science and technology talent. What stood out to me in both cases wasn’t just how much money was on offer, but how each country worked to lower the friction researchers face when deciding whether to relocate.

America’s Visa Costs and Research Funding Uncertainty

H-1B is the visa program US companies use to hire skilled foreign workers. It’s a channel for recruiting talent from abroad, but it’s also been a persistent source of political debate over its effects on domestic employment and wages.

In September 2025, President Trump introduced a $100,000 payment requirement for certain new H-1B petitions. This primarily targets cases where employers are hiring workers currently outside the US, and there are exceptions. The measure doesn’t apply retroactively to visas already issued or petitions filed before it took effect. Nor does it mean existing visa holders must pay $100,000 every time they renew.

The significance of this move isn’t that it slashed the statutory visa cap across the board. It’s that hiring newly recruited foreign talent under this category now carries a substantial added cost for employers. Even hiring the same researcher now requires a different calculation than before.

Research funding has added to the uncertainty as well. The Trump administration’s FY2026 budget request for the NIH proposed a figure roughly 39% lower than the comparable finalized 2025 budget. It’s important to distinguish between a proposed cut and what Congress ultimately finalizes. The fact that a reduction was proposed shouldn’t be read as meaning the cut has already been carried out.

For researchers, what matters is whether they can predict if funding and employment for their next project will continue. I think that as this kind of uncertainty grows, so does the reason to look seriously at the research conditions other countries are offering.

The Conditions France Set for Restarting Research

On April 18, 2025, France launched the ‘Choose France for Science’ platform. It’s a program that connects host institutions with supported projects, so that researchers coming from abroad can continue their work at French institutions. The French government put academic freedom and research infrastructure at the front of its pitch.

The program’s total budget is €100 million. Through France 2030, the state co-funds up to 50% of a selected project’s costs, with a per-researcher cap of €2.5 million in state support. On top of that, host institutions or local governments can add their own funding. This shouldn’t be read as if the entire national innovation budget were earmarked solely for this program.

Employment terms are negotiated between the researcher and the institution. The position could be permanent, or it could start as a fixed-term contract. This isn’t a system that guarantees lifetime employment to everyone selected. What matters is that it offers both initial support for 2-3 years to get research underway, and a path forward through subsequent grant competitions in Europe and elsewhere.

According to figures the French government released as of January 19, 2026, the first cohort of selectees numbered 46. Of these, 41 had been working at U.S. institutions. Their nationalities span more than ten countries, so this doesn’t mean all 41 are American. Fields ranged from climate and environment to life sciences and space research.

This case alone doesn’t let us conclude that most researchers leaving the U.S. are headed to France. Still, it’s worth examining as a recruitment approach that pairs the move with both a position and the initial funding a researcher needs when relocating.

China Launches a K-Visa That Doesn’t Require an Employer

China began implementing the K-Visa on October 1, 2025, aimed at young foreign talent in science and technology. Its defining feature: applicants don’t need an employer or sponsoring institution inside China to apply.

Guidance from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes the target group as young foreign talent holding at least a bachelor’s degree in science, technology, engineering, or math from a major domestic or international university or research institution, or those currently engaged in related education or research at such institutions. Specific conditions regarding age, education, and work experience follow the guidance of the relevant diplomatic mission. Simply holding a STEM bachelor’s degree doesn’t automatically qualify anyone.

The visa offers convenience in terms of entry frequency, validity period, and length of stay, and is designed to support educational, scientific-technological, and cultural exchange as well as entrepreneurship and business activities. It differs from other talent-recruitment approaches in that it lowers the burden of having to secure an employment contract beforehand.

Tax breaks, housing support, and school benefits for children need to be considered separately. Even if a region’s talent-support policy includes such benefits, getting a K-Visa doesn’t mean those benefits are available nationwide. The visa system and each region’s support programs are not the same thing.

What strikes me here is that this reduces the number of things prospective talent must resolve before entering China. Once the requirement to first find an employer is removed, room opens up to explore collaboration or entrepreneurship opportunities locally. How many people actually settle in and sustain their activities is a result we’ll have to wait and see.

Oswarld’s Lens

Working as a GTM strategist, I looked at these cases and found one thing France and China had in common: both spelled out, concretely, what research environment and residency conditions they’d offer to the people they wanted to attract.

France offered an institution to continue research at plus initial support; China offered an entry pathway that didn’t require an employer sponsor to apply. From a researcher’s standpoint, what matters isn’t just how much you’ll be paid — it’s where you can start working and on what. I think talent attraction, too, has to give the other side a clear reason to choose you.

Korea’s overall GTCI 2025 ranking was 31st, lower than Portugal’s 24th. That said, this index isn’t purely a ranking of how well countries attract overseas talent. The 2025 edition also changed its indicator composition and calculation method, so the shift from previous rankings can’t be pinned on the success or failure of any single policy. The report also rated Korea as a case with strong talent-capability output relative to input.

What I want to point out is this: what matters is what concrete choice-conditions the invested money translates into for an overseas researcher. Announcing a total research-funding figure and making a researcher actually want to work in Korea are two different tasks.

When an overseas researcher is weighing Korea, they need to be able to see whether they can continue their own research, which team and project they could join, and what pathways exist after the contract ends. If these conditions stay vague, announcing a large budget won’t easily translate into an individual’s decision to relocate.

I’m not arguing we should simply replicate what France and China did. The fact that both countries opened up their systems, and whether they’ve actually succeeded in retaining talent long-term, are two separate things to evaluate. Still, I think Korea needs to design more concretely, alongside the debate over increasing budgets, what positions and research opportunities that budget will actually provide.

If I were reviewing a talent-attraction program, right after the total funding amount stated in the announcement, I’d look at the research conditions applicants can actually verify: who they’d work with, what resources they’d have access to, and how long they could sustain their research. Only when those answers are clear will the reasons to choose Korea become persuasive.

References

• OECD: Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2025 — Comparing R&D Spending
• INSEAD & Portulans Institute: GTCI 2025 Report
• The White House: September 2025 Proclamation on H-1B
• The White House: H-1B FAQ, September 21, 2025
• NIH: FY2026 Budget Request
• French Ministry of Higher Education and Research: Budget and Employment Terms of Choose France for Science
• French Ministry of Higher Education and Research: Profile of the First 46 Recipients
• China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Eligibility and Conditions for the K Visa

The author is Oswarld (Kwangseob Ahn). Current roles: Adjunct Professor at Sejong University, Strategy Consultant at INLEVEL9. Career, research, books, and recent work are kept current on the About page. Latest · July 2026: HEMA-2: A Consolidation-Aware Tri-Memory Architecture with Multi-Channel Scheduling for Lifelong Conversational AI.