Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Dukgeun Ahn chaired the R&D Innovation Roundtable on January 18 at the Samsung Seoul R&D Campus and announced measures for innovation and strategic investment in industrial and energy R&D.

After 20 separate meetings with approximately 500 researchers, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) has laid down four major measures for innovation.

First, MOTIE will provide concentrated assistance for world-leading R&D projects that aim for challenging objectives, instead of giving R&D support in the form of subsidies. Around KRW 1 trillion worth of prefeasibility study will be pushed for securing ten major gamechanger technologies, and over 10 percent of the new annual budget will be poured into project tasks for solving industry dilemmas to hike the present one percent share of support for highly difficult, “failure-tolerable” projects to 10 percent within five years. Also, 70 percent of the new budget is to be allotted to 40 major “super gap” projects, amounting to two trillion won of public-private joint investment in 2024.

Second, large-scale project tasks will be given central focus in project alignment for marketability and maximum effect. The number of 10 billion won-plus project tasks will be increased to 160 in 2024, dramatically up from 57 of 2023. To heighten the participation of solid companies, the cash payment ratio of their R&D expense will be lowered, projects be ensured of non-disclosure and firms will be allowed to self-execute their settlement of expenses.

Third, MOTIE will convert to a demand-side R&D process. By fully introducing the method of item designation, the Government’s role will be limited to suggesting challenging goals, while companies and researchers take the initiative in planning out their project tasks. Through pilot testing 10 cascading project tasks, institutions in charge of project tasks will be granted the authority to form consortiums and allocate R&D costs. The participation of market experts in R&D evaluation will be expanded and the proportion of investment-aligned R&D projects will be drastically enlarged to take the market demand into account in a timely manner.

Fourth, the ministry will support the future generation to grow into world-leading researchers. The number of graduate schools with focus on advanced industries will be increased to eleven, up from the present three, and talent training investment will be upped from last year’s 206.2 billion won to 229.4 billion won in 2024. MOTIE will also assist overseas expat R&D projects for international joint research and raise the participation of up-and-coming researchers in R&D projects. Regulations on researchers’ startup business launching will be removed to empower “star” researchers.

Minister Dukgeun Ahn stated that “MOTIE plans to concentrate the Government’s industry and energy R&D capacity on developing next-generation high-risk technologies to induce the crowding-in effect for bold private investment, while converting to a demand-side R&D system that respects the freedom and creativity of companies and researchers.”