Regional Innovation Leaders Development

Regional Innovation Leaders Development

Funds Korean small and medium-sized companies developing into innovation leaders within regional clusters.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

Regional Innovation Leaders Development (지역혁신선도기업육성) is an annual R&D grant programme administered by TIPA under Korea's Ministry of SMEs and Startups, targeting Korean SMEs embedded in regional industrial clusters and positioned to become innovation leaders within their local ecosystem. The programme aligns with Korea's broader policy of distributing innovation capacity beyond the Seoul metropolitan area, supporting companies active in the main industry sectors of their respective regional cluster. It is part of TIPA's ten-programme SME R&D portfolio funded from the 2026 MSS budget of KRW 2.2 trillion.

The 2026 application window ran February 11 – March 3 via the SMTECH portal. Eligible applicants are for-profit Korean SMEs as defined under the Small and Medium Enterprise Basic Act, operating within a designated regional industrial ecosystem or cluster; non-profits, universities, research organisations, and individuals are not eligible. Award amounts and project duration caps are specified in the annual announcement notice rather than as a fixed programme-level limit; exact figures were not disclosed in the publicly available pre-announcement materials. TIPA uses AI-assisted screening and a 30,000-strong evaluator pool to assess applications.

All applications are submitted in Korean via SMTECH. Businesses interested in the 2027 cycle should begin identifying their cluster affiliation and regional industrial sector classification well in advance, as the selection process assesses the applicant's strategic role within the regional ecosystem, not just the technical merits of the proposed project. The next annual cycle is expected to open around February 2027; applicants should monitor SMTECH for the upcoming announcement and contact their regional TIPA office or the MSS hotline (1357) to confirm programme scope and priority sectors for the next round.