On September 12, 2018, the seminar “2018 Korea – EU Research & Innovation Day” was held at Lotte Seoul Hotel. The main topic was about the Korea – EU Research & Innovation. The seminar was hosted by the NRF(National Research of Korea) and Delegation of the European Union to the Republic Korea. The seminar was successfully placed thanks to the support from Ministry of Science & ICT and European Commission.
The seminar was held from 9:30 to 17:30 and presenters explained about various programs and themes. The seminar was divided into 4 sessions aiming to present programs and initiatives, as well as financing opportunities to Korean companies in joint projects in the areas of science and technology undertaken with entities of the EU.
Session 1 explained the Korea – EU cooperation in Research and Development (R&D). The presenter of Session 1 introduced all about the program Horizon2020 from basic research to industrial research, and also about what is expected of its subsequent program, Horizon Europe. Session 2 explained the personnel mobility programs and programs that support innovation. Marie Sklodowska Curie (MSCA) is a good example of personnel mobility, which has the objective of promoting research staff exchange through grants so that they can carry out with their research in laboratories of companies located in other countries. Programs that support industrial development include the EUREKA initiative and EUROSTARS modality distinguished for their dedication to small and middle-sized enterprises.
Session 3 was dedicated to the partner countries so that they could explain together the common problems that have been detected based on the experience of daily work, such as updated information of cooperation programs and its bases, identification of partners, etc. On this sense, Korea EU Research Centre and a node from the Enterprise European Network (EEN) were invited and their researchers did presentations on ways to find partners in Europe.
In Session 4, European research professionals talked about the practical information such as how to build consortium by groups of technology: TIC and Nano electronics, Energy, Materials, Health and Biomedical, and Transport. There was also a time dedicated to personnel mobility and to the EUREKA initiative.
At the end of the session 2, the last presentation called “Introduction to Korea-Europe Joint R&D Programs” was carried out. It has the objective of promoting scientific-technological cooperation between Korea and Europe. EUREKA is a good example. Established in 1985, it is an intergovernmental initiative that supports cooperative R&D with the objective of boosting the competitiveness of the industrial fabric through development projects on market-oriented products, processes and services and projects based on innovative technology. Since its establishment, more than 25,000 organizations participated in this program. In 2009, Korea joined the EUREKA initiative and since this year, it is a partner country. As result of Korea’s participation, currently 227 Korean institutions are participating in 111 projects with more than 87.9 billion won of government funding.
In respect to the promotion of the participation of Korean entities in the EUREKA initiative, “EUREKA Innovation Week” was held on may this year in Helsinki. It was a session dedicated to Korea, named “Korea EUREKA Day’. 100 Korean companies participated, as well as other 350 from entities of other countries, mostly European. The event, through multiple working sessions on pitching modality and individual meetings, allowed Korean entities, mostly SMEs to present their collaboration proposals to potential European partners. “EUREKA Innovation Week” will celebrate a new edition in 2019 coordinated by the United Kingdom, country that currently holds the presidency. It is worth saying that Spain has given great effort to support Korea in the initiative since 2009 in two aspects: a. during the Spanish presidency in 2016, Spain took the commitment to improve the Korean status, from Associated Country to Partner Country; b. Spain can be said to be the best partner of Korea in numbers of certified projects.
In addition, other programs such as “Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) Korea”, “K-TAG : Korea Technology Advisory Group” will be carried out to support Korean small and middle sized-enterprises to expand their market, innovate their products, services and technology.
If the member of ESCCK is interested in these programs, check out the websites below.
Enterprise Europe Network Korea
K-TAG국제기술협력단 국제협력사업팀