Science ministry meets on sector-by-sector plans for seven tech growth engines

The science ministry said Thursday it held a meeting with the presidential office and other government ministries to draw up sector-by-sector implementation strategies for the "7 major SEED projects," a government-wide push to cultivate seven advanced technologies as the country's future growth engines.

The project covers small modular reactors, nuclear fusion, renewable energy, quantum technology, aerospace, advanced biotechnology and advanced supply chains.

The meeting was meant to make the core missions and performance targets of each field concrete and to systematically connect government research-and-development investment with support for demonstration and commercialization, the ministry said. Participants also discussed how to combine policy tools across ministries, including regulatory and institutional improvements, so that technological results can be used in actual industrial settings.

The government unveiled the direction of the project at a briefing chaired by the President in August and set up a cross-ministerial implementation framework and a plan for drafting the sector strategies at a meeting of science and technology ministers in September.

"The 7 major SEED projects are a national joint mission to secure core strategic national assets and next-generation growth engines by pooling government investment and the private sector's commercialization capabilities," Park In-kyu, head of the Office of Science and Technology Innovation, said. He urged each ministry to clearly define its core missions and performance targets and to pool efforts to produce implementation strategies that can actually be carried out.

Park added that the government will actively use every available policy tool, including priority budget allocation, links to commercialization and the removal of regulatory and licensing obstacles, to support the projects in generating results.

The ministry plans to finalize the sector-specific implementation strategies within the year in cooperation with the relevant ministries and to keep checking progress and major issues as the project moves forward.