Ministry of SMEs and Startups launches program linking technopark equipment with university expertise to boost regional SME commercialization

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups is launching a technology cooperation program that combines technopark research equipment with university expertise to improve commercialization success rates for regional small and medium-sized enterprises. The initiative expands existing equipment-access support by linking it to technology diagnosis, verification and research and development project planning.

The ministry will hold a launch forum Wednesday at Daejeon TIPS Town for the "2026 Technopark Equipment-Based Innovation Growth Cooperation Support Project," bringing together the Korea SMEs and Startups Agency, Chungnam Technopark, Jeonbuk Technopark, KAIST, Jeonju University and regional SMEs.

The program operates through a jointly run technology cooperation framework between technoparks and universities, aimed at resolving technical challenges facing regional SMEs and supporting their path to commercialization. By combining technopark research equipment with university specialists and technical capabilities, the program helps companies diagnose technology problems, then guides them through equipment use, technology verification and R&D project planning in sequence.

Regional SMEs have long struggled to secure specialized equipment and technical support when improving products or entering new business areas. Finding the necessary testing and analysis equipment and experts has been difficult, and companies have faced limits in translating equipment-use results into actual technology development projects. The ministry said a sustained cooperation structure connecting university experts with company needs had been lacking.

To address this, the ministry required technoparks and universities to form consortiums to diagnose companies' technical problems, then progressively link those diagnoses to shared equipment use, technical consulting, technology verification and commercialization R&D project planning. The program will also support companies through the completion of preliminary research.

"Cooperation partners who can help resolve a company's technical difficulties and jointly drive commercialization are more important than anything else for the innovation and growth of regional SMEs," said Hwang Young-ho, the ministry's director general for technology innovation policy. "We will actively incorporate the results of this project into the industry-academia-research cooperation program, known as K-ILP, which is being planned as a national policy initiative."