The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Oh Young-joo) announced on the 17th that it will be implementing the '2025 SME Technology Development Support Project Recruitment Notice' to enhance the technological competitiveness of SMEs through strategic R&D support.
The SME Technology Innovation Development Project is a project that supports corporate growth through R&D support at each stage of innovation capacity and rapid commercialization. This year, 779 new projects will be selected and a budget of 117.9 billion won will be provided.
The main objectives of the 2025 SME Technology Innovation Development Project are as follows.
◆ Expanding support for strategic technology fields
In order to secure a competitive edge in global technology hegemony and secure future growth engines, the support ratio for strategic technology fields will be expanded to over 50%.
To this end, we plan to select 124 strategic items in 13* strategic fields of SME R&D and strengthen the strategic nature of SME R&D through RFP project planning, etc.
◆ Expanding strategic support for private-sector-led R&D and scale-up tips
We will expand support for 'Scale-up Tips', in which private investment firms (VCs) proactively verify promising companies, invest first, and then support technology development for recommended companies.
We are establishing the 'Scale-up Tips Global Track' to enable companies to fully advance into overseas markets through R&D support. We will provide up to KRW 1.5 billion in R&D funds over three years to companies that are challenging global cooperation, attracting overseas investment, and entering overseas markets beyond the domestic market.
In addition, we plan to hold regular meetings between successful TIPS companies and scale-up TIPS operators to help TIPS companies grow into scale-up TIPS companies, and strengthen the linkage and continuity between policies, such as awarding extra points to the ‘TIPS Company of the Year.’
◆ Securing excellent technology through cooperation with global institutions
We will establish a ‘global collaborative R&D’ so that small and medium-sized venture companies can also carry out international joint research that has been mainly conducted by large corporations and research institutes. We will support domestic innovative companies to grow into global innovative companies through joint research with excellent overseas researchers and commercialization and business development using the technology of leading overseas research institutes. In particular, this year, we will begin cooperation based on networks with excellent institutions in North America such as MIT and Purdue University, and we plan to expand the number of countries and research institutes we cooperate with in the future.
Park Yong-soon, Director General of Technology Innovation Policy at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, “In 2025, we will work to ensure that the R&D achievements of small and medium-sized enterprises can lead to national competitiveness by focusing on promising future technologies such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and carbon-neutral technologies, and strengthening collaborative R&D with excellent global institutions.”
The SME Technology Innovation Development Project is divided into first half and second half projects. The first half project application period, announced on January 17, is from '25.2.3. to 2.17., and the second half project application period is from '25.5.8. to 5.21.
You must check the support target, support content, conditions, etc. for each business and apply for the business. Some businesses, such as scale-up tips, global cooperation, technology transfer/commercialization, etc., are announced separately.
The announcement details can be found on the website of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups or the website of the Integrated Research Support System for Inter-Ministry .
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