The Korea Institute of Materials Science(KIMS), a government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT, continues to conduct the comprehensive business support project, which was started last year, to support domestic companies’process improvement, new product development, intellectual property rights, and marketing by investing the institute’s budget. As the first implementation of the project in 2021 showed direct economic results such as increased sales and reduced production costs of participating companies, KIMS decided to continue the project one more year.

This support project, not state-led but led by KIMS, aims to provide close support to companies by dividing the industrial sector into industries related to new government's national goals and regional specialized industries. The industries related to new government's national goals are △ innovation technology support for new industries such as carbon-reducing material and process technology, high-capacity and life-long secondary battery technology, high-efficiency solar cell technology, offshore wind power technology, and useful resource-related technology; and △ materials and parts commercialization support for prototype manufacturing, process improvement, and testing/evaluation for materials and parts-related companies, which KIMS concentrates on.

For regional specialized industries, KIMS carries out technology support projects for specialized companies in Gyeongsangnam-do and Changwon-si, as part of the metallic material demonstration testbed project implemented by KIMS and the local governments of Gyeongnam and Changwon. Through the technical support project for manufacturing demonstration of regional specialized companies, KIMS will discover and actively support about 4 companies every year for the next 3 years that utilize equipment of the metallic material demonstration testbed which aims for optimal mass production of core items produced by local companies in Gyeongnam and Changwon. In addition, KIMS plans to carry out a project that reduces equipment usage fees by up to 2 million won per company in order to support local businesses that are still experiencing difficulties in imports and exports or reduced sales due to COVID-19.

Jung-hwan Lee, the President of KIMS, said, “More companies demand both source and applied technologies rather than limited to specific requirements. KIMS will actively conduct the comprehensive business support and play a leading role in creating an innovative ecosystem through industry-research cooperation.”

The comprehensive business support project led by the Department of Corporation Support and the Metallic Materials Total Solution Center of KIMS will continue until the end of the year.