Daegu City, Daegu–Gyeongbuk (TK) dental community urge fair competition for National Institute of Dental Research

【Financial News, Daegu = Kim Jang-wook】“Establish fair selection criteria that align with the purpose of establishing the National Institute of Dental Research. Scrap the biased evaluation criteria and hold a fair competition!”
Daegu City and members of the Daegu-Gyeongbuk dental, academic and industrial communities have drawn attention by speaking with one voice to strongly denounce bias in the results of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s commissioned study, “Research on Evaluation Indicators and Criteria for Selecting Candidate Sites for the National Institute of Dental Research,” and call for a fair redesign of the evaluation criteria and implementation of a competition process.
Daegu City said Mayor Choo Kyung-ho and members of the Daegu-Gyeongbuk dental, academic and industrial communities issued a position statement and a statement calling for “fair competition for the National Institute of Dental Research” on the afternoon of the 29th in the situation room on the second floor of City Hall’s Dongin Building.
The announcement was made to point out problems with the evaluation criteria for selecting a site for the National Institute of Dental Research, presented in a recent commissioned study by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and to call for a fair and transparent competition process in line with the purpose of establishing the institute.
According to the statement, the Ministry of Health and Welfare identified the Advanced Medical Complex, an R&D facility under its jurisdiction, as the most comparable case, yet the evaluation criteria it established were found to have completely disregarded the development of a dental research and industrial ecosystem and to have been designed to give a particular region a one-sided advantage.
In particular, the statement strongly called for the immediate scrapping and complete redesign of biased indicators that lacked even a basic degree of consistency. Objective quantitative indicators verifiable through Statistics Korea data, such as the “number of dental companies by region, sales, and value added,” had been excluded, while transportation accessibility was given the highest weighting (16.8%) and GRDP and population growth rate (14.7%), which are unrelated to R&D, were included.
Park Se-ho, head of the Daegu Promotion Task Force for the National Institute of Dental Research, stressed, “The site of the National Institute of Dental Research should be determined based on fair criteria and capability, not political logic.” He added, “Until the Ministry of Health and Welfare withdraws the biased commissioned-study results and creates a fair competitive arena, we will respond forcefully to the end, drawing on the united strength of the local health and medical community and Daegu citizens.”
Mayor Choo stated Daegu City’s position on the site selection for the National Institute of Dental Research.
He stressed, “The site for the National Institute of Dental Research should be determined based on the future of dentistry in South Korea and industrial competitiveness,” adding, “An industrial ecosystem in which research, clinical practice, certification and production are organically connected, excellent personnel, and contribution to balanced national development should be evaluation criteria for site selection.”
He strongly urged the government to take three steps: completely redesign the evaluation indicators and weightings that have raised suspicions of favoritism toward a particular region, in line with the institute’s founding purpose; fully gather local governments’ views and make dental research capabilities, clinical infrastructure, industrial concentration and contribution to balanced national development key evaluation criteria; and transparently disclose the grounds for the evaluation criteria and weightings, the evaluation process and the results, while establishing a mechanism to verify fairness.
Finally, Mayor Choo reiterated, “If you try to exclude Daegu’s capabilities using criteria without reasonable grounds, we will respond firmly together with 2.4 million citizens.”

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