Gyeonggi-do Expands Regional Cooperation Research Centers (GRRC) to Strengthen Industry-Academia-Research Collaboration

Gyeonggi Provincial Government Gwanggyo New Office Building

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Gyeonggi Province is recruiting four new 'Gyeonggi Regional Cooperation Research Centers (GRRC)' to secure excellent research personnel needed by companies and to foster future advanced industries through industry-academia-research collaboration.

The newly designated centers will conduct research focused on 4 to 5 R&D projects annually for small and medium-sized enterprises within the province. In this process, they will also train specialized personnel in future advanced industry research and development (R&D) to promote regional industrial development.

The province will accept application documents until the 12th of next month and select the centers in June through document screening, presentation evaluations by an evaluation committee composed of field experts, and on-site inspections.

Selected centers will receive support of 500 million KRW annually, up to a maximum of 3 billion KRW over six years.

The province plans to give preferential treatment to advanced industry sectors such as semiconductors, bio, advanced mobility, and digital innovation to secure future growth engines.

Additionally, the province has decided to broaden opportunities for more universities and researchers with excellent capabilities to participate in this recruitment.

To this end, based on field feedback collected last February, the province partially relaxed requirements such as the area for securing dedicated spaces and researcher participation conditions. It also awarded extra points to applicant institutions without prior participation history and mandated that at least 20% of the provincial funding be matched by municipal funding, revising the support system to provide 'more and fairer opportunities.'

Kim Hyun-dae, Director of the Future Growth Industry Bureau of the province, stated, "The Regional Cooperation Research Center project will serve as a foundation to drive job creation and sales growth for companies in the province through core technology development utilizing excellent research infrastructure." He promised, "We will actively support the development of competitive products in domestic and international markets and strengthen the competitiveness of Gyeonggi Province companies."

Since its inception in 1997, the Gyeonggi GRRC project has been a representative industry-academia-research collaboration initiative of Gyeonggi Province that supports technology development necessary for fostering advanced industries by utilizing research resources from universities and research institutes within the province to solve problems such as funding, technology, and personnel acquisition faced by SMEs during product development.

To date, 2,242 companies have participated, carrying out 1,821 projects.

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