ULSAN < invest Korea

On April 10, Ulsan city revealed it was chosen for the Ministry of Science and ICT's regionally-tailored R&D support project, and will receive KRW 2.1 billion in funding for the next 3 years.

This is a project that entails a bottom-up approach to R&D, where specific regions plan and develop ideas to pitch to the government. This is the first year for this project, carried out by the Ministry of Science and ICT, and the purpose is to increase regional R&D capacities and to establish an ecosystem for innovation.

The city gathered ideas and opinions through a series of meetings with industry, academia, and government officials and experts to collect the best ideas.

The project was conducted in the same way as the government's R&D planning method, which entails 10 proposals from 5 different innovation organizations and companies and a professional evaluation process.

Ulsan Science and Technology Promotion Center located in Ulsan Techno Park was in charge of the final plan the city proposed to the Ministry of Science and ICT. The center was also in charge of research and analysis of regional issues, planning meetings as well as consulting local and international experts.

Ulsan is responsible for more than 30% of Korea's entire petrochemical production and treats the largest chemical substance in the nation. However, the aging infrastructure of the industrial complexes have led to an increase in hazardous material accidents. That's why the Ministry of Science and Technology came up with "Safe from toxic industrial substances: building a safety platform using IoT sensors" as the project's vision.

Through this project, the city hopes to establish a real-time monitoring platform for hazardous materials and build a cooperation system with citizens, industry, academia and research institutes. It hopes to increase safety from harmful substances by concentrating research on accident response behavior using sensors and system prototypes.

Upon completion, the city will increase the sensor's value-added ratio from 10% to 30% and increase the sensor localization rate to 88%.

In addition, the city is expected to produce KRW 6.8 billion in production inducement, KRW 3.3 billion won in added value as well as create 18 new jobs.

jhc@newsis.com

Source Text

Source: Newsis (Apr. 10, 2018)

** This article was translated from Korean.