Foundation for June's 'SME Venture R&D Innovation Plan'
Focused Support for Innovative R&D Challenging the Market
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 30th that it will conduct the "2025 Integrated Announcement of SME Technology Development Support Projects" for research and development (R&D) projects totaling KRW 1.5214 trillion.
Next year's Ministry of SMEs and Startups R&D projects will focus on supporting innovative R&D that challenges the market according to the "SME and Startup R&D Innovation Plan" announced on June 4, promote network-type R&D that innovates the R&D ecosystem, and enhance the efficiency of financial input by combining government grants with private investment and loans.
First, KRW 122.3 billion will be allocated to technology development that strengthens the challenge and innovation capabilities of SMEs. Newly selected R&D projects next year will focus on 12 national strategic technology fields and carbon neutrality fields. The SME Technology Innovation Development Project will allocate more than 50% of the new project budget, and the Startup Growth Technology Development Project will allocate more than 40% to strategic technology fields. The new project budget for next year is KRW 117.9 billion for SME technology innovation and KRW 115 billion for startup growth technology development.
Additionally, the "Certification and Demonstration Achievement-type R&D," which strengthens verification of goals proposed by companies centered on market and technology experts, will be promoted. To more effectively support innovative and challenging goal achievement, the research period of 2 years and total government grant of KRW 500 million will be gradually expanded across all technology development support projects.
KRW 38.6 billion will be supported for network R&D that achieves practical effects through R&D. "Global Cooperation-type R&D," which plans and conducts projects through joint research with foreign research institutions, and "Global Scale-up TIPS," specialized for overseas investment, will be newly established to help globalize SME and startup R&D.
"Cooperative Effect-type R&D," which provides one-stop support from technology development applicable to industrial sites to distribution to demand companies, and "Technology Transfer and Commercialization R&D," which supports follow-up commercialization technology development funds for companies that have received technology transfer in national strategic technology fields through the Tech Bridge platform, will promote impactful cooperation among SMEs conducting R&D.
Along with this, KRW 84.8 billion will be allocated to R&D that improves the efficiency of financial input. A consortium-type project track will be newly created in the Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration R&D project to help SMEs overcome limitations in R&D planning capabilities by collaborating with various university research institutions.
The program linking government-funded R&D with private investment and loans will be gradually expanded to enhance the efficiency of government R&D support. By improving strategic technology theme projects, the selection of challenging projects in major technology fields will be promoted, and through R&D success commercialization loan programs and technology guarantee-linked R&D support projects, excellent technologies developed through R&D support projects will be helped to enter the market quickly.
Kim Woo-soon, Director of Technology Innovation Policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, explained, "To restructure into 'R&D down R&D,' we gathered private wisdom to derive the SME and Startup R&D Innovation Plan and actively reflected the innovation plan when budgeting for SME R&D in 2025."
Details of the integrated announcement and subsequent detailed project announcements can be found on the Ministry of SMEs and Startups website, the Technology Development Project Integrated Management System website, or the Pan-Government Integrated Research Support System website.
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