Ministry of Science and ICT's total ICT R&D investment scale reaches 942.4 billion won
Expanding new budget allocations for ultra-small IoT and blockchain

The Ministry of Science and ICT held a briefing session explaining this year's R&D promotion direction.

The Ministry allocated a total budget of 4 trillion 695 billion won across five plans: basic research, fundamental research, commercialization, human resource development, and infrastructure development. According to Yun Cheon-won, Senior Aide to the Minister, "We are entering a new normal era where low growth is becoming entrenched. Any short-term policies China has already caught up on. We need to focus on areas where the private sector finds it difficult to venture into and seek out policies that will make us 'first movers' over the long term."

In this R&D initiative, the key promotion directions are set as follows: ▲Researcher-centered challenging and creative R&D innovation ▲Responding to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and fostering innovation growth drivers ▲Solving social problems and creating jobs through R&D ▲Expanding the foundation for science and technology and ICT R&D.

To strengthen long-term and stable research support centered on researchers, a new "Basic Research for Life" support plan enabling focused research in a single area is being planned for implementation starting in 2019. Additionally, support for "Basic Research Laboratories" will be provided for long-term research execution in ICT strategic technology fields.

Attention is also given to developing high-value-added technologies and creating new markets in preparation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. To create advanced ICT-based jobs, laboratory job creation through startup and technology transfer as well as early commercialization are being encouraged. The approach involves increasing research institute enterprises within R&D special zones where technology and management jointly invest and nurture development.


According to Lee Byeong-jin, Secretary at the Ministry of Science and ICT, "The Fourth Industrial Revolution creates new industries and services through the convergence of basic technology and industry," and "We must implement a people-centric Fourth Industrial Revolution." Emphasizing the need for "national response" spanning science, technology, industry, economy, society, and institutions, the Ministry unveiled a vision to secure technological competitiveness in intelligent technology competition and foster innovation growth drivers, thereby solving social problems as well as driving industrial innovation through intelligence.

As a mid to long-term R&D innovation strategy, the existing pursuing-type industrial development R&D investment is being repositioned toward goal-oriented investment direction. The control and management system is also being reorganized with a researcher-friendly focus to achieve effective results. The previously exclusive and closed ecosystem is being transformed into an environment to enhance private sector self-sufficiency.

4.9% decrease compared to previous year; voucher system expanded to private R&D enterprises

As a result, this year's total ICT R&D investment scale is 942.4 billion won, down 4.9% from the previous year. Of this, 665.9 billion won is invested in technology development, 23.7 billion won in standardization, 38.1 billion won in technology commercialization, 81.3 billion won in human resource development, and 133.4 billion won in infrastructure development.

Notably, this year the budget for grant-type R&D to expand researcher investment through measures such as waiving interim evaluations and self-accounting to ensure researcher autonomy has increased to 900 million won. In particular, new investments have been increased, with 4.7 billion won allocated for ultra-small IoT and 4.5 billion won for blockchain. To strengthen the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises, the existing voucher system, previously available only to non-profit institutions, is being expanded to private R&D enterprises. New budget allocation for this expansion is 22.104 billion won.

Furthermore, to create an open and cooperative ecosystem, the "AI Open Innovation Hub" to provide machine learning data, open APIs, and computing power is planned to be completed in the first quarter.

For ten strategic technology fields in response to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, new budget allocations are set as follows: mobile communications 16.3 billion won, networks 3.1 billion won, radio frequency/satellite 2.7 billion won, foundational software/computing 15.4 billion won, software 27.7 billion won, broadcasting/smart media 3.5 billion won, digital content 1.8 billion won, information security 20.8 billion won, ICT devices 6.8 billion won, and convergence services 13.1 billion won.

To solve social problems and secure fundamental technologies, 34.3 billion won is allocated to support research and development at research institutes (ETRI), and 27.4 billion won in new budget is invested in the cross-ministerial Giga Korea project for 5G convergence services and commercialization.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced its future schedule, indicating that project announcements will begin accepting applications in February, new plan selection evaluation will be conducted in March, and project agreements and full-scale research will commence starting in May.