Ministry of SMEs and Startups Accelerates 'Living Lab-Based Technology Development'... Operating Institutions to Be Selected in February Next Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Junhyung Lee] The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on the 27th that it will actively promote the ‘Living Lab Utilization Technology Development’ project, which involves consumers in the product planning and research and development (R&D) of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A living lab is a method of solving problems through collaboration between consumers and companies. Considering the difficulty SMEs face in reflecting consumer preferences during product planning, development, and demonstration stages, the Ministry introduced the living lab utilization technology development project. This project supports SMEs in developing consumer-customized products by involving consumers as key participants in technological innovation. It consists of the planning stage, where ideas are concretized through consumer behavior analysis and concept design; the development stage, which maximizes interaction between consumers and companies to increase commercialization potential; and the demonstration stage, which secures product acceptance through user validation.

The Ministry will select operating institutions equipped with capabilities such as building and operating living lab platforms by February next year. Eligible applicants are consortia composed of startup companies and SME support organizations. The Ministry plans to announce the recruitment of companies participating in living lab-utilized R&D by the end of March next year, followed by the selection of participating companies in early July.

The support scale per consortium is 2.75 billion KRW. The Ministry will provide 1 billion KRW for building and operating the living lab platform and 1.75 billion KRW for living lab-utilized R&D.

Won Young-jun, Director of Technology Innovation Policy at the Ministry, said, “Developing products that meet diverse consumer tastes is more important than anything else,” adding, “We will steadily promote the project so that consumers and SMEs can jointly discover ideas and proceed through technology development and demonstration.”

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