Ministry of Science and ICT
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, On the 5th, the Ministry of Science and ICT held the first meeting of the Special Committee for Innovation Challenge Promotion under the National Science and Technology Advisory Council.,
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, The committee is a joint body of the public and private sectors responsible for reviewing and coordinating innovative and challenging R&D promotion policies as a follow-up measure to systematize innovative and challenging R&D fostering systems for a paradigm shift in R&D towards world-class leadership.,
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, The head of the Science and Technology Innovation Bureau serves as the chairman, and the committee is composed of a total of 17 members including two government members at the director level responsible for science and technology/R&D policies and budgets, and 14 private members including experts from industry, academia, and research institutions.,
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, At the first meeting on this day, the committee discussed the future plans for systematizing innovative and challenging R&D fostering systems and designated innovative challenge-type R&D projects for their high innovation and challenge.,
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, The systematization plan for innovative and challenging R&D focuses on selecting core R&D projects for a paradigm shift in R&D, applying differentiated fostering strategies such as selecting a core R&D project for a paradigm shift, bold reform of R&D regulations, and providing incentives for challenging research.,
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, To this end, criteria for preliminary feasibility studies suitable for innovative challenge-type R&D have been established, and related regulations have been revised to expand planning and evaluation management fees. In the future, a new policy brand named ‘APRO (Ahead)’ will be applied to the existing innovative challenge-type R&D project group under the current legal name.,
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, The committee also discussed additional project candidates for the APRO R&D project group scheduled for next year.,
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, Since March, the Ministry of Science and ICT has been identifying candidate projects among key government agencies performing R&D and evaluating the suitability of candidate projects based on APRO criteria. Selection criteria focused on the key elements of innovation challenges, expected effects, innovativeness, and ripple effects, as well as whether they are introducing a differentiated leading R&D innovation system. The second APRO R&D project group designation proposal based on the review results will be announced in the future.,
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, In addition, the ‘Innovation Challenge National R&D Project Consultative Body’, which involves participating ministries and research management specialized institutions, as well as frontline researchers, will be fully operational. Through this body, stakeholders will collectively identify obstacles to APRO R&D implementation and practical solutions.,
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, Ryu Kwang-jun, Head of the Science and Technology Innovation Bureau at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, “Improving the constitution of R&D is necessary for a paradigm shift towards leading R&D” and emphasized that “the government will continue to support policies to ensure that the innovative and challenging R&D system can firmly take root in the R&D field and lead to outstanding results”.