How Does Public Procurement Create Innovation in the Republic of Korea?

The Republic of Korea's innovation system has been built and coordinated over a long period, particularly after the Korean War, to increase government-led research and development investments. As a result, South Korea reached an advanced country level, quickly possessing top-tier technologies in various fields. However, after that, we have reached a stage where we realize there are limitations to the current approach in fostering innovation that leads beyond simply catching up with advanced countries’ technological levels. We now require policy tools suitable for an era in which innovation, from a different perspective, spreads in a way that citizens can directly experience and benefit from. In that process, we have realized that the key driver of innovation lies in demand. In this lecture, the speaker will explain how the government’s public market can play a role in such innovation, using South Korea’s case as an example.