The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (Minister Oh Young-joo, hereinafter referred to as the Ministry of SMEs and Startups) announced on the 20th that it has finally selected 115 support projects for this year's new project, 'Regional Innovation Leading Company Fostering R&D', and has begun follow-up procedures such as agreements.
The 'Regional Innovation Leading Company Fostering R&D' project is a project that supports technological development to promote innovative growth of small and medium-sized enterprises outside the metropolitan area and to promote balanced regional development. After many years of preparation and planning with the region, the project was implemented after exemption from preliminary feasibility review and appropriateness review by the Ministry of Science and ICT.
Unlike previous regional R&D projects, the participation requirements, such as average sales and possession of R&D capabilities, were significantly strengthened, but 278 projects were submitted, and a nationwide competition was introduced to select companies with high potential for growth as R&D innovative companies and leading companies, moving away from the existing regional competition.
For in-depth evaluation, all projects that passed the requirements review were evaluated face-to-face by experts from industry, academia, and research, and 127 projects were evaluated as excellent projects eligible for government support. Finally, the selection review committee decided on 115 projects after considering government subsidies and local government matching budgets.
Looking at the characteristics of the selected host companies, the average sales over the past three years were approximately KRW 12.3 billion, and the proportion of companies with corporate research institutes was approximately 95%, indicating that companies with scale and technological development capabilities participated.
In addition, as a result of inducing the formation of a consortium so that small and medium-sized enterprises can create excellent R&D results through cooperation between industry, academia, and research institutes, 49 universities and 36 research institutes across the country will participate, with an average of 2.7 institutions cooperating per project.
For the selected projects, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to invest a total of KRW 83.2 billion over the next two years (24 months) together with 14 cities and provinces outside the metropolitan area to support technology development of the corresponding items in key industries.
Specifically, in order to build a key industry ecosystem, 37 billion won in national funds and 16.2 billion won in local funds will be provided for 38 projects over two years, and 21 billion won in national funds and 9 billion won in local funds will be invested in 77 projects to strengthen the capabilities of local companies.
In addition, we plan to closely support the regional specialized project 'Legend 50+' so that technologies (items) developed through R&D can lead to commercialization and actual sales and growth.
Starting with the agreement explanation session for participating companies, the business plan will be supplemented, and after going through procedures such as agreements for each task, the budget will be supported and R&D will be carried out in earnest starting from the end of April.
Lim Sang-gyu, head of the Regional Innovation Policy Division, said, “This project is an R&D project exclusively for small and medium-sized enterprises in non-metropolitan areas. Based on regional demand, it was prepared at a scale of 1.445 trillion won over five years after exempting the preliminary feasibility study and conducting a feasibility review by the Ministry of Science and ICT. We will do our best to secure the budget and operate the project so that innovation by small and medium-sized enterprises in the region can lead to the growth of key industries.”
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