Last July, Professor Jung-Hye Roe of the Department of Biological Sciences at Seoul National University (SNU) was appointed as the sixth president of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRFK). The NRFK, which was formed in 2009 by the consolidation of the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation, the Korea Research Foundation, and the Korea Foundation for International Cooperation of Science & Technology, is the country’s largest research funding organization, administering five trillion won, or one-fourth of the government’s budget for research and development. President Roe received her undergraduate degree in microbiology at SNU, graduating as the top student in its College of Natural Sciences, and her doctoral degree in molecular microbiology at the University of Wisconsin. She caused a stir in 1986 when she was hired as the first female professor in experimental science at SNU’s College of Natural Sciences while still in her twenties. As both one of the world’s leading authorities in the life sciences and the holder of posts such as the head of SNU’s Office of Research Affairs, a member of the national-level Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology, and the president of Basic Research United, President Roe has been at the forefront of university and social development. She has also been continuously involved in the advancement of gender equality in the university, serving as the chair of the SNU Women Faculty Council and the first chair of the SNU Diversity Council. She currently holds a director-level position at SNU.  

As a professor, as a scientist, as a female leader, and now as the head of an organization that’s increasing the national research competitiveness, you’re becoming many people’s role model. Tell us about your academic background and how it’s led you to where you are today. 

Looking back on my path to my present position, I think it doesn’t have much to do with planning and cautiousness. When I was young, my favorite thing was to have fun and spend time with my friends. I didn’t think seriously about society. When I had to decide my career path in high school, I realized that I enjoyed and was good at subjects in which problems have logical solutions, so I chose the sciences. At that time, going into the sciences often meant naturally aiming towards medical school, but I knew that I didn’t have the aptitude to be a doctor. I was so scared of blood that when my younger sibling got hurt and was bleeding, I left them to my aunt and ran away instead of cleaning them up and taking care of them. And I felt that I didn’t have the warm heart need to console people when they’re sick. I had really liked biology since middle school, so I ended up going to the College of Science’s microbiology department. At university, in addition to learning from my professors, I learned a lot from participating in study groups with other students. That was a hard time to properly hold classes, because a lot of people were missing school to attend demonstrations against the Revitalizing Reforms system. Also, Seoul National University didn’t have a very good graduate school system at that time, so I decided that if I want to keep studying, I should go abroad.

At SNU, you’ve held the posts of associate dean of student affairs for the College of Natural Sciences, head of the Office of Research Affairs, leader of a BK21 PLUS [Brain Korea 21 Program for Leading Universities and Students] research team, etc. Isn’t it difficult to hold these appointments while engaging in research? 

Yes, it is. When I became an associate professor, the dean of the College of Natural Sciences told me to take the post of associate dean. It was difficult because I had a lot of work to do in the lab, but I went into it thinking of it as a chance to contribute to the school. After that, I went back to focusing on research for a few years until 2004, when the university president asked me to head the Office of Research Affairs. I had a lot of worries about it, but I decided to try my best to manage both my research and my official duties. The first measures I attempted to introduce while in that post were simple things like expanding the library and helping researchers by ensuring that the main administration was managing research funds as well as possible. But then the falsified research incident [involving former SNU professor Hwang Woo-suk] arose. As the head of the Office of Research Affairs, it was my job to direct investigations related to research ethics, so I had to form an investigatory committee, conduct the investigation, and even give a nationally-televised press conference. Fortunately, the committee members obtained clear findings, and the case was handled successfully. That wasn’t an easy job for me, but it did draw attention in academia and society to the issues of research ethics and integrity, and affected not just SNU but the whole country, resulting in the creation of university research integrity committees and research ethics committees. After my appointment term ended, I was able to go back to my department and continue my research. Then I wanted to contribute to my department, too, so I took on roles like department head and BK21 PLUS research team leader.

You’ve also been the chair of the SNU Women Faculty Council and were the first person to be chair of the SNU Diversity Council, and have made efforts to promote gender equality and diversity. 

I was involved in the Women Faculty Council for a while before becoming the chair in 2015. I had always paid attention to women faculty issues, but then it became my job to address them. While holding that position, I became more aware of female faculty members’ situation and issues, such as the atmosphere that prevented them from growing into leaders, and had the chance to discuss with the other members of the council how those problems could be overcome. As part of the council, I’d continually done research on gender equality at SNU, and then research directed by Pak Un Jong, current chair of the [national] Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, argued for creating a dedicated body on campus with the ability to execute related policies.  Professor Hong Ki-Sun was the team leader at that time. The then-president of SNU, Nak-in Sung, gave permission to create a body that didn’t just address gender equality but could support all minority groups that were not receiving the attention they deserved. He suggested that the Women Faculty Council be at the center of this organization and that I run it. That’s how, in 2016, we launched the Diversity Council. After two and a half years of holding the post of its chair, I left this past July to become part of the National Research Foundation of Korea. The council earned the support of all the members of the SNU community, and there has been a lot of interest in it from society as well. I hope that it becomes more entrenched in the future and plays a role in developing not just SNU but our whole society.

You said that many opportunities have arisen for you without your making particular plans or efforts to obtain them. But this kind of career development is not something that happens through sheer luck. I’m sure you’ve worked quite hard to get here, and I wonder if you have some words of advice for SNU’s younger alumni and students. 

I agree that I’ve come a long way over the course of my career. And I think what has allowed me to do that has been the many people who’ve inspired and taught me.  When I became an associate dean in the College of Natural Sciences, the dean gave me a lot of guidance. Also, watching the older researchers around me, who dedicate their whole lives to research, was what made me decide, “Ah, I can’t take a casual approach to life as a researcher. And when I’m holding an appointment, I can’t neglect my research. Though it may be hard, I have to do my best at both jobs.” When I was head of the Office of Research Affairs, too, watching [SNU] President Chung Un Chan made me realize that the leader of a major institution had to be flexible and have the ability to take many factors into consideration. In my personal life, for the last 30 years—from its founding—I’ve been on the operating committee of an NGO whose mission is related to my religious beliefs, and that organization has taught me a lot too. Meeting many people there who have no connection to my work has taught me the importance of real relationships between people, something you can’t learn in a university lab. I’ve also learned a lot through sisterhood with the women of the Women Faculty Council and Diversity Council. As you can see from all these examples, I’ve learned many valuable things in the groups that I’ve belonged to at various points in my life, and I think that these things have helped me to keep growing.

You were the chair of the country’s first university body dedicated to promoting diversity. What kind of resolutions did you have when you begin, and what kind of aspirations do you have for the Diversity Council now? 

Actually, we didn’t have firm plans for the council’s role when we established it. I think that all of the people involved just shared a belief in the importance of diversity and shaped the council based on this. The two and a half years I spent as chair also helped me grow quite a bit. In ordinary administrative departments, there are a lot of tasks to take care of, so it is difficult to find time to make future-oriented development plans related to important values. But the Diversity Council is more than that, and I really enjoyed having the chance to think hard about diversity at the campus-wide level. As it reaches the three-year mark, I’m thankful that even more members of the SNU community are recognizing the importance of diversity and working with us towards it, and I think that the things we’re trying to accomplish are becoming more and more clear. With that as the case, I think we can wonder why, with diversity-related institutions so universal in overseas universities and businesses, we didn’t establish and expand such a valuable institution sooner. I think that if the SNU Diversity Council accomplishes many things and those accomplishments are well-publicized, similar institutions will pop up across the country, though they might have slightly different forms or names. The number of institutions expressing active interest in diversity is certainly growing. I’m proud that we’ve been a catalyst for that.

SNU’s unresolved issues, including the development of its teaching and research and the improvement of relationships between the members of its community, are mounting. How would you like to see it tackle these issues? And what do you see the diversity council’s role in that being? 

Though it might be difficult for the SNU community to reach a consensus on particular details, I think that everyone agrees that our overall goals must be fostering students’ abilities, doing outstanding research, and fulfilling the role that society requires of the university. Because of that, I think we can achieve great progress if everyone works together toward this shared vision. We just need to carefully research the best way to do that. Also, even though we agree on overall goals, when we think concretely about change happening in the particular groups that we belong to—our department, our college, etc.—there is a tendency to fear it, to become inflexible, and to put up barriers. So, I hope that the next leaders of the university work hard at encouraging people to move past the boundaries of their small groups and put their efforts toward a shared cause.  For example, the Deans’ Council shouldn’t be a place where everyone fights for their college’s pet project or argues only from their college’s point of view, but where everyone discusses what the university as a whole needs. To do that, leaders need to represent not just the strong members of the university community who are already in a good position, but also the people in a difficult position or the members of minority groups.  That’s where the value of diversity becomes even more important. I think that diversity must play a very important role in uniting the university. 

The Diversity Council’s fall research project this year addresses the issue of SNU’s non-tenure-track faculty and researchers. Since this issue relates to the National Research Foundation of Korea [NRFK] too, I’d like to hear any advice you have for the study. 

The people you’re talking about are employed in several types of positions, including researcher, research professor, and postdoc, etc.  Within SNU, too, there are several names for their positions, but when they reach the level of research professor or researcher or above, they are eligible to apply for government funding to conduct their own research. The NRFK supports these young researchers whether or not they have tenure-track positions. So even though their current situation is difficult, I hope that they devote their energies to receiving this kind of funding and using it to conduct pioneering research in their fields. Also, research professors and postdocs work under PIs [principal investigators], conducting part of their research for them, but I think they have to approach this research with an independent attitude. You can’t develop as a researcher with a passive attitude.  Though they’re working with the PI on his or her research, I hope that they’ll take the initiative to do their work in an original way and that they’ll actively prepare themselves for the future by thinking about what kind of research they’ll do when they become an independent researcher. 

Still, it seems like these kinds of changes must be led from above. 

That’s true in some ways, of course, but not in all. At first, PIs just want younger scholars to agree with them, but because researchers who express their own opinions clearly are better for the research, the PIs start to expect more. So there’s no reason for young researchers to be overly cautious. After all, it’s harder for older people to deal with younger people than vice versa, these days! (Laughs)

Finally, would you like to look beyond SNU and say something about Korean society? 

I think that, because our society developed incredibly fast quantitatively in such a short time, we seem very accomplished from the outside, but more and more internal weaknesses are becoming apparent these days. We’re now at a turning point where we must fix these problems and enter a new stage of development, but even though we clearly feel the limitations of trying to keep moving forward in all areas in the same way as we have been, we don’t seem able to readily make the necessary changes. But the people involved each area are the ones who know best what its problem is. If we don’t honestly reveal those weaknesses now and make sincere efforts to address them no matter how long it takes to do so, all of our future endeavors will be meaningless. In the NRFK’s case, I think we need to make policies that encourage researchers’ efforts to engage in truly creative research, and that’s what I will work hard to do. To that same end, individual researchers must also work hard to ensure that their research is up to par academically. The NRFK and individual researchers both need to engage in introspection and make efforts to guarantee that our research activities are genuine and creative. I think that these kinds of efforts are needed in all areas of our society. 

I certainly hope that, as you say, our society can make the leap onto the next level by honestly facing up to our weaknesses and making earnest efforts to resolve them. I’m sure that you will be one of the people leading those efforts, and that SNU will also play a major role in promoting diversity in our society. Thank you for your time today.