In the 1970s Korea, Government-Supported Research Institutes(GSRIs) led the nation in R&D but they raised some problems because similar institutes were founded in a short period. After president Park, the founder of all GSRIs died in 1979, GSRIs had to be reformed by the new political environment. As the first GSRIs, KIST(Korea Institute of Science and Technology) tried to tackle the crisis by building a plan for the federal system of GSRIs, which aimed for low-level unification of similar institutes. However, the government decided to reduce the number of GSRIs from 16 to 9 through a merger. As a result of this restructuring, KIST merged with a graduate school, KAIS(Korea Advanced Institute of Science), thus becoming KAIST(Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology). Although the authorities announced that the objective of the merger between KIST and KAIS was to achieve a synergy between research and education, there was obviously a political background to the merger including antipathy towards KIST, which was caused by the privileges bestowed on KIST in 1970s. Admitting the necessity of reorganization of GSRIs, the authoritarian government’s mandatory merger policy only focused to increase the operation efficiency and the policy didn’t achieve the desired long-term effect.