The short version: South Korea’s National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) — referred to in the underlying Korean-language reporting as 한국연구재단, sometimes rendered literally as “Korea Research Foundation” — has concluded, after roughly three years of review, that papers published by Park Min-won, president of Changwon National University, do not constitute research misconduct. The finding closes an integrity controversy that first surfaced during the university’s 2023 presidential-candidate vetting process, according to South Korean press reporting, including the Seoul Economic Daily and the Gyeongnam Shinmun.
How the case started
Park, a professor in Changwon National University’s electrical and electronics (control) engineering department, was selected as the top-ranked candidate in the university’s August 2023 presidential election. South Korean outlets reported that the university’s routine pre-appointment research-ethics verification then flagged two of his papers: a 2018 paper in a domestic journal with a reported similarity/plagiarism rate of 52%, and a 2016 paper in an international journal with a reported rate of 55% — both well above the roughly 15–20% threshold Korean reporting cited as a typical concern trigger. A separate duplicate-publication concern was also raised, involving overlapping content between an English-language paper and a Korean-language paper covering similar material a year apart. The ethics questions reportedly delayed the university’s planned September 25, 2023 recommendation of Park to the Ministry of Education for formal appointment.
The three-year review
Following the 2023 allegations, Changwon National University’s own Research Ethics and Integrity Committee undertook a verification process on Park’s research record, including external expert review of at least some of the flagged papers. The matter was ultimately referred to the National Research Foundation of Korea for final review. According to the Seoul Economic Daily, the NRF notified the university in writing on July 13, 2026 that no research misconduct had been confirmed. On the duplicate-publication question specifically, the foundation’s stated reasoning — as reported — was that the overlapping publication occurred without the researchers’ awareness, showed no intent, and could not be characterized as improper duplicate disclosure for undue benefit.
CASRAI has not independently reviewed the NRF’s internal notification or the university committee’s underlying verification report; this account reflects South Korean press coverage of those documents rather than direct primary-source review of them.
Why a similarity-rate finding and a misconduct finding aren’t the same thing
The case is a useful illustration, for research administrators anywhere, of a distinction that recurs across national integrity systems: a high textual-similarity or plagiarism-rate figure identifies overlap, not intent, and most formal misconduct frameworks — not just Korea’s — require evaluating intent and context before that overlap is characterized as misconduct. It is the same distinction CASRAI’s own Duplicate publication and Research misconduct terms describe, and the same reason similarity-checking tools like Turnitin or iThenticate are explicit that a similarity score does not by itself determine whether misconduct occurred — it supports, but doesn’t replace, a reviewer’s judgment.
The roughly three-year timeline is also notable on its own terms. A multi-stage process — institutional ethics committee review, external expert verification, and a national funding body’s own final review — is common wherever a funding agency, rather than only the researcher’s home institution, has a formal role in adjudicating misconduct allegations, a structure broadly analogous to how the U.S. Office of Research Integrity handles PHS-funded cases (see CASRAI’s ORI term) even though the specific procedures and legal standards differ by country. Readers wanting the general mechanics of how these multi-stage investigations typically proceed can see CASRAI’s guides on how a research misconduct investigation actually works and research integrity fundamentals (FFP, RCR, and the misconduct process).
