Experts in industry·university·research institute were gathered together to examine national R&D policy strategies to support innovation and growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the crucial pilar of national economy, and to design new policy directions for the future.
 
 
The 8th NIS Policy Colloquium was held in the theme of “How To Design National R&D Strategies for Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises?” on 4th November (Monday).
 

 

▲ Sang-seon Kim (President, KISTEP)

 

 
As the government is gradually expanding R&D investment and prosecuting support policies in various aspects to strengthen SMEs’ competitiveness, it has positively affected to survival and growth of SMEs. Significant improvement in innovative performance, however, is still required. So this colloquium was planed to seek national R&D policies for SMEs in order to enhance national competitiveness, in the view of that strengthening promotion strategies suited for the nature of SMEs’ R&D is the top priority for innovation and improvement of SMEs.
 
  
Presentations consisted of (1) Innovation plans for R&D support systems of SMEs (Hoon Hee Lee, Director, Directorate for R&D Strategy, Korea Technology and Information Promotion Agency for SMEs (TIPA)), and (2) Analysis of national R&D strategies and policy projects for SMEs (Seung-Ku Ahn, Policy Advisor, Research Institute of S&T Innovation and Strategy, KISTEP), and panel discussion was followed.
 
 
 

 

▲ Hoon Hee Lee (Director, Directorate for R&D Strategy, Korea Technology and Information Promotion Agency for SMEs)

 

 
Director Lee introduced the ‘Innovation plans for R&D support systems of SMEs’ that presented by Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) in August, and explained that this policy was prepared to accelerate SMEs-centered innovation growth strategies and to effectively support emergence of new industries in the era of the 4th industrial revolution. Then he explained the major contents of the innovation plans as ▲new business generation of 4th industrial revolution, ▲strengthening in cooperation between industry·university·research institute, and ▲fair selection of R&D enterprises, and presented detailed plans to realize these.
 

 

 

▲ Seung-Ku Ahn (Policy Advisor, Research Institute of S&T Innovation and Strategy, KISTEP)

 
 

Policy advisor Ahn pointed that “The government’s support for R&D of SMEs was not effective enough to create private R&D ecosystem, and to improve technology competitiveness and innovation capacity of SMEs.” For the reason, he pointed the limits in strategies of national R&D support for SMEs, and suggested 3 aspects of policy direction based on analysis. ▲First, the cooperation between R&D ministries of SMEs should be strengthened in the aspect of overall management and adjustment of R&D strategies of SMEs, and the governance should be rebuilt for R&D progress of SMEs. ▲Second, the ministry of Korea Small Business Innovation Research program (KOSBIR) should select and support projects proven to be commercialized in order to improve effectiveness of KOSBIR, and MSS should implement non-R&D methods and batch support operation with a focus on technology commercialization. ▲Third, structural reorganization for projects, proceeded temporarily in response of termination of major R&D projects of MSS and shifted to continuous projects after chosen for termination management innovation projects, should be implemented early, and R&D portfolio of the ministry should be redesigned to strengthen R&D systems dedicated to MSS. Moreover, it is required to shift the way to support by packages, grouped as R&D and non-R&D projects by selection, focused support, and similar innovation capacity of SMEs, rather than base expansion.
 

 

▲ Panel Discussion

 

 
Panel discussion was led by Jang-Jae Lee (Director, Research Institute of S&T Innovation and Strategy, KISTEP), and was attended by ▲Sun Woo Kim (Research Fellow, Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Studies, Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI)), ▲ Jung Joo Kim (Head, Technology Development Division, Ministry of SMEs and Startups), ▲Yong-Hwan Noh (Professor, Seoul Women’s University), ▲Beom Soo Park (Executive Director, SMEs Innovation Center, Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute), ▲Yong Seol Song (CEO, Amogreentech), ▲Kyung-ae Ahn (Head, ICT Science Team, Digital Times), and ▲Woonsun Hong (Research Fellow, Balanced Growth Research Department, Korea Small Business Institute).
 

During the opening address, president Sang-seon Kim mentioned that “Strengthening competitiveness of SMEs became a crucial national project as the perception, that existing large enterprises-centered growth strategies have reached its limits, is expanding. As Korean government is trying to establish ecosystem for concrete growth of SMEs, this colloquium is expected to review overall R&D strategies for SMEs and to innovate supporting systems.”
 

 

 

▲ Photo from the 8th NIS Policy Colloquium