State review on national R&D projects to be shortened

South Korea will cut down the time it takes to complete the review process for national research and development projects to 4 1/2 months from the current seven-month period to secure the timeliness of certain projects, the Ministry of Science and ICT said Friday, as it announced the revised policies to enhance the country’s preliminary feasibility study for R＆D projects.

According to the ministry, projects that will be subject to the new review policy will be limited to those that pass the state-run committee’s approval to acknowledge the pressing need for a quicker review.

The ministry added that qualified projects must have a total project cost of 300 billion won ($215 million) or less and a project period of five years or less, while proposing up to three subprojects.

In order to accelerate the review process for smaller-scale projects, the government also increased the minimum cost of projects that require a preliminary feasibility study to 100 billion won from the current 50 billion won.

The ministry said the government doubled the feasibility study period of bigger projects -- those which cost 1 trillion won or more and are expected to last six years or longer -- to two months. Such revisions were made to enhance the soundness of state-level investments, according to the ministry.

“Through the policy revisions, we expect that task-oriented projects such as national strategic technologies and carbon neutral technologies will be able to flexibly respond to fast-changing surroundings and be pushed with timeliness," said Joo Young-chang, vice minister of science, technology and innovation at the Ministry of Science and ICT.

The revised preliminary feasibility study rules will be effective for projects submitted in the fourth quarter of this year, according to the ministry.

By Kan Hyeong-woo (hwkan@heraldcorp.com)