This study seeks to understand the compressed growth of science and technology in South Korea by examining the entire history of the nation’s science and technology (S&T) research system, with a focus on research organizations representative of each era following its liberation from Japanese colonial rule (1910-1945). Led by national research institutes, the period between 1945 and the mid-1960s saw the social birth of research institutes. Subsequently, up to the 1970s, a series of government-funded research institutes were established, thus forming infrastructures and human resource pools for research and development (R&D). With the full-fledged production of the fruits of R&D amidst the expansion of corporate research institutes in the 1980s, the influence of capitalist logic grew as a dominant variable in S&T. Shaped during this era and centering on large corporations, the private sector-led research system has continued to this day. As universities belatedly exhibited a relatively high growth starting in the 1990s, a triangular research system consisting of public research institutes, corporations, and universities gradually came to strike a balance. The main driving force leading such changes in the research system has been the South Korean government’s science and technology promotion policy, deeply hidden within which is the agenda of the economic translation of science and technology.