ICT R&D Innovation Voucher Support Project Briefing... This Year's Budget 54.7 Billion KRW

[Asia Economy Reporter Seulgina Jo] The Ministry of Science and ICT will hold an online briefing session at 2 p.m. on the 7th for the ‘2021 Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Research and Development (R&D) Innovation Voucher Support’ project.

This project supports small and medium-sized ventures and mid-sized companies with insufficient ICT capabilities to quickly commercialize and productize by receiving necessary ICT from research institutions such as government-funded research institutes and universities.

In response to the difficulties faced by small and medium-sized ventures due to the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the budget has been significantly increased to 54.7 billion KRW (50.2 billion KRW for new projects) this year.

Following the ongoing first announcement, a second project announcement worth 14.4 billion KRW is scheduled for March. The first project announcement accepts applications through the Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) until February 16. After holding a matching day between applicant companies and research institutions within this month, the selection evaluation will be conducted in March.

To allow companies to choose according to development difficulty, support is divided into a short-term support track, the Convergence Promotion Type (1 year, up to 500 million KRW), and a mid-term support track (2 years, up to 800 million KRW). Additional points (2 points) will be awarded when regional manufacturing companies apply. Furthermore, to assist companies that want to participate but lack information and networks regarding research institutions, five specialized matching organizations will be selected through a public contest to facilitate technology matching. Improvements have been made to allow changes in development direction and performance goals during project execution, and commercialization consulting such as testing and certification, patent creation, overseas expansion, and marketing tailored to each project’s characteristics will also be provided.

Lee Seungwon, Director of the Information and Communication Industry Policy Division at the Ministry of Science and ICT, said, “The ICT R&D voucher is an important project that provides companies with customized technology instead of budget and grants them R&D leadership, offering opportunities for innovative leaps through ICT.” He added, “We will do our best to create new markets and realize the Digital New Deal by promoting ICT-based convergence of small and medium-sized ventures struggling due to COVID-19.”

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