Overview
South Korea’s Ministry of SMEs and Startups said it selected 306 new projects under its regional innovation-leading company R&D program and will invest KRW 280 billion over two years for non-capital-area SMEs.
The program combines 157 industry-academia-research ecosystem projects with 149 direct firm-capacity projects, while broader eligibility rules opened participation to companies with an R&D investment ratio of at least 5 percent.
Key points
- Applications rose to 738 after the participation threshold was eased from the previous sales-based requirement.
- Application fields were led by manufacturing, mobility, bio, and energy, showing demand across both traditional and emerging industries.
- The ministry said the average R&D intensity of selected firms was 11.7 percent, and the bio segment recorded a much higher average ratio.
- The government also said it will use online evaluations and link the program with innovation vouchers to reduce business burden.
Source: https://www.korea.kr/news/policyNewsView.do?newsId=148963912&call_from=rsslink
References: https://www.korea.kr/rss/policy.xml / https://www.mss.go.kr/site/smba/main.do