Case study: An assessment of the economic service life of research equipment in the Korean public research institutes

Abstract Recently, as the effective use of research equipment has been regarded as a prerequisite condition to maximize research and development (R&D) outcomes, the problem of replacing aging or obsolete research equipment has become important. The purpose of this article is to assess the economic life of R&D equipment empirically using data gathered from public R&D institutes in Korea. We developed a systematic model to apply traditional engineering economic concepts and estimated the economic service life of research equipment based on size and utilization purpose of the equipment. Finally, this study suggests a policy scheme for efficient replacement of research equipment based on our estimation results.