KATS Dir.-Gen. Kim Jung-gwan gives an opening speech at a seminar on 

R&D action plans based on the standards of future growth engine industries, 

organized by KATS, at the COEX in Seoul on April 16.

By Oh Chung-sook

Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS) held a seminar on R&D action plans based on the standards of future growth engine industries at the COEX in Seoul on April 16 and announced a blue print for future R&D activities converging new growth engine industry standards.

Roughly 200 people from industry and research institute circles participated in the seminar, which were divided into seven sessions, named after the seven future growth engine industries, selected by the government. The select industries the government strives to nurture as future bread winners are the smart grid, convergence semiconductor, next-generation electronics parts and components, future computing, smart medical information, smart cars, and new and convergence logistics.

Administrator Sung Shi-heon of the Korea Agency 

for Technology and Standards (KATS).

R&D activities based on standards refer to future R&D projects reflecting standards in the course of developing technologies by analyzing rapidly changing technologies and standardization trends in the global market. 

KATS has launched the national standards coordinator system, designating a National Standard Coordinator, a civilian standards expert responsible for providing support for connecting government-financed R&D tasks with standardization and industrialization, to each of the seven select future growth engine industry sectors, last year with the goal of establishing R&D implementation strategies based on standards. KATS has been strengthening national R&D policy collaboration by designating National Standard Coordinators in soliciting inter-ministry and ironing out different views among interest parties of different business sectors. KATS’s provision of support for standardization of state-funded tasks and test-bed projects and consulting services on Korean companies’ use of international standards are expected to expand infrastructure for realizing the creative economy and nurturing future growth engines through up-front standard-oriented R&D activities. 

Of late, countries, including the United States, German, Japan, and even China are scrambling for putting huge budget and manpower to inaugurate technologies committees designed to standardize future industries such as smart grid, smart city, and new and renewable energies. The background behind the move is that the countries attempt to command markets ahead of others by securing convergence and compatibility among technologies and systems. 

Among candidate standards on charging electric vehicles, one of the hottest issues at international standardization institutions such as ISO and IEC, that include U.S. and Korean standards are to be determined through a vote for the Final Draft of International Standards, the last stage of international standardization. As such, experts point out that advance market control and creation of new markets through international standards by analyzing the developments of international standards are the keys to survival from fierce standardization competition.  

Dir.-Gen. Ahn Jong-il in charge of standards policy at KATS said the National Standard Coordinator project will likely be connected with the industry engine project for the creative economy to cover planning in the international standards field, starting this year. In this regard, R&D strategies for smart automobiles, wearable smart gadget and other growth engine industry tasks for the creative economy will be established and efforts to link the projects with international standards  will be made in a full-fledged manner.