[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] The government is reorganizing its technology development (R&D) support policy direction to respond to changes in the business environment after the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). It will expand R&D investment in the traditional manufacturing sector and strengthen a cooperative ecosystem including R&D between large and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
On the 21st, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups held the 15th Science and Technology Ministers' Meeting at the Government Complex Sejong and announced the "Measures to Enhance the Performance of SME Technology Development (R&D)." This measure was prepared to review the existing SME R&D policies and supplement them from the perspective of improving performance.
The promotion strategies of this measure are threefold: ▲strengthening the technological competitiveness of traditional manufacturing SMEs ▲strengthening the R&D cooperative ecosystem ▲enhancing SME R&D performance through innovation in R&D institutional infrastructure.
Looking at the main contents, first, strategic R&D investment in the traditional manufacturing sector will be expanded. Along with existing advanced technologies, a technology roadmap for mid-level technologies will be established, and strategic investment linked to the roadmap will be increased by 35%. The scale of roadmap-linked investment will increase from 223.4 billion KRW last year to 301.8 billion KRW this year (according to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups).
New R&D supporting mid-level technologies will be established (5.9 billion KRW), and the growth ladder for technological independence in the materials, parts, and equipment (SoBuJang) sector will be strengthened (195.3 billion KRW).
Cooperative R&D and manpower support between government-funded research institutes and SMEs will also be expanded. A university-research institute-industry platform cooperative R&D will be newly promoted to provide customized support for SME difficulties, and support for hiring highly experienced researchers by SMEs will be strengthened (10.3 billion KRW).
New R&D to solve social issues such as carbon neutrality and eco-friendliness will be established (2.7 billion KRW), and 123 SMEs in the eco-friendly and energy sectors will be identified and intensively supported.
R&D supporting high value-added products and services using information and communication technology (ICT) such as artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain, as well as process automation and innovation-related R&D, will be supported (48 billion KRW).
To accelerate open innovation, cooperative R&D will be supported. Consortium R&D between large and SMEs will be newly promoted, and joint investment-type R&D between large and SMEs will be expanded (35.2 billion KRW).
In addition, commercialization R&D will be supported for representative industries by region, and a regional New Deal venture fund will be established to support the commercialization of regional companies.
R&D demonstration will also be strengthened by focusing R&D support on companies located in regulatory free zones. By December last year, a regulatory free zone fund worth 35.2 billion KRW was established to support the continuous growth of companies within the zones.
For excellent R&D outcomes, initial market creation functions will be strengthened by supporting public institution pilot purchases (50 billion KRW) and expanding procurement innovation-type projects (43.3 billion KRW).
The existing one-to-one support method will be expanded to a one-to-many (joint investment) support method to also support generic products.
Starting this year, a new "crowd investment-linked R&D" will be introduced, where the government matches R&D investment for projects that have received a certain level of funding through crowdfunding platforms such as Wadiz and Tumblbug.
The investment-type post-payment R&D introduced last year to enable SMEs to conduct challenging R&D will also be continuously expanded by introducing incentives.
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