All-Out Effort for Government R&D Commercialization... 80 Billion Won Fund Established

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] The government has rolled up its sleeves to commercialize technologies developed through research and development (R&D) projects. It plans to nurture companies specializing solely in prototype production and to manage the research outcomes of large research groups in an integrated manner. A public-private joint fund worth 80 billion KRW will be established to invest in startup companies that commercialize more than 50% of public technologies.

On the 17th, the Ministry of Science and ICT finalized the 14th Science and Technology Ministers' Meeting's strategy to advance the dissemination system of basic and fundamental research outcomes. The government prepared this strategy to promote the transfer and commercialization of excellent research results across ministries and government R&D achievements to the private sector.

Establishment of an Integrated Network for Dissemination of Research Outcomes

The government set three strategies and nine implementation tasks. The three strategies are seamless linkage between policies and projects, strengthening collaboration among innovation actors, and advancing the research outcome dissemination platform.

To implement the first strategy, the government will functionally integrate independently operated research outcome commercialization support projects into a three-tier structure. The Ministry of Science and ICT will first integrate eight detailed projects under its jurisdiction and later reorganize related projects of other ministries. Additionally, to reduce the gap between supply and demand of research outcomes, five intermediary research groups in bio, nanomaterials, ICT mediation, and others will be newly established to act as baton zones (intermediary organizations) for cross-ministerial research outcome relay. Furthermore, regular sharing of research outcomes will be institutionalized between basic and fundamental research outcome generating institutions such as the National Research Foundation of Korea and the Science and Technology Job Promotion Agency, jointly discovering promising commercialization technologies.

Moreover, to strengthen collaboration among innovation actors, the government will establish an integrated network for research outcome dissemination. By linking technology information databases of each ministry, an integrated access system for various information will be created. An offline integrated network (covering six major technology fields and four areas) will be established, involving all technology commercialization intermediary personnel and organizations held by each ministry. Subsequently, a research and development execution system that integrates technology (researchers) and market (companies) will be created. For fundamental technology development projects under the Ministry of Science and ICT (54 projects worth 931.7 billion KRW this year), the structure will be reorganized to reflect market (industry) opinions and evaluations from R&D planning to assessment. Market-centered national research will be promoted to enhance companies' capacity to absorb research outcomes, and efforts will be made to foster 'one source multi-use' type basic and fundamental technologies.

Establishment of an 80 Billion KRW Fund for Startup Companies

To innovate and advance infrastructure for research outcome dissemination, manufacturing, intellectual property (IP), and financial services for commercialization will be enhanced. Companies specializing in prototype production of public research outcomes will be nurtured, and support for research equipment performance evaluation (supported by KBSI) and testing and analysis will be promoted. In the future, research outcomes of large research groups (such as Global Frontier) will be managed integrally to increase utilization, and a knowledge property pool will be established by forming a consultative body among public research institutions to ensure unpublished patents can be utilized timely. Subsequently, a public-private joint fund worth 80 billion KRW will be formed to invest in startup and technology-based companies that commercialize more than 50% of public technologies.

Finally, the government will also promote the advancement of systems for managing corporate demand information and commercialization history of research outcomes. A regional network-based innovative ecosystem for research outcome commercialization will be established.

Yong Hong-taek, Director of R&D Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, "The follow-up support system for government R&D outcomes has been dispersed across ministry missions and project units, which has limited the public's ability to feel the economic and social contributions of public research outcomes." He added, "Based on this strategy, we will firmly connect independently operated research outcome commercialization support programs and ensure that innovation actors in industry, academia, and research continuously communicate and collaborate from early research stages to commercialization processes, thereby creating new value from public research outcomes."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.