South Korea will push to increase international research and development (R&D) efforts in the coming years to help fuel its industrial competitiveness, the government said Tuesday.
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said the goal is to raise the current international
cooperation of just 2 percent of all state supported R&D projects to 10 percent by 2014.
State support for industry-related government research stands at 4.4 trillion won (US$3.6
billion) for this year, of which 75 percent or around 3.3 trillion won has been allocated to actual technology research and experiments.
"Because the country's R&D budget will continue to grow at a set pace, the total that is
expected to be spent on joint international cooperation projects may top 400 billion won in the target year," Lee Chang-han, the director general of the ministry's technology policy office, said.
He said that Seoul places importance on forging close ties with foreign laboratories, universities
and companies, as they can help South Korean businesses stay up to date in the latest
developments, and make headway in new products and services.
To this end, the ministry has finished compiling a comprehensive database on overseas
engineers, scientists and technologies. The database, which took a year to set up, will feature 300 key technologies, hundreds of laboratories and institutes, and about 1,000 experts from 20 countries around the world with their contact information.
It will be introduced on a state-run Internet site (www.gtonline.or.kr) from September.