[Digital Today reporter Seulgi Son] The Ministry of Science and ICT said on Thursday it created a General-purpose Equipment Subcommittee under the Advanced Innovation Equipment Alliance at the National Science and Technology Advisory Council and held its first meeting.

The subcommittee aims to identify items priced below 100 million won that are commonly used at research institutions, have a high share of foreign-made products and can be replaced with domestically made alternatives within 2 to 3 years. It will promote matching between demand and supply.

An Advanced Innovation Equipment Technology Policy Center at the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science analysed national research facility and equipment purchases from 2019 to 2023 and found the foreign-made share of oscilloscopes, microplate readers and spectrum analysers reached 100 percent. It also found high overseas dependence for specimen slicers at 95.8 percent, distillation and concentrators at 93.6 percent and gas chromatography at 91.0 percent.

The subcommittee consists of 16 experts from industry, academia and research institutes. Jin-hwan Lee (이진환), head of the policy planning division at the Korea Research Council of Science and Technology, will serve as chair. Lee said, "Basic equipment is like the roots of research and development, and if we rely on foreign-made products, self-reliance in national science and technology is impossible."

Sung-soo Kim (김성수), director general for R&D policy at the ministry, said, "Localising general-purpose equipment reduces costs across the research ecosystem and has the effect of strengthening the value chain of the domestic research equipment industry." He added, "We will produce tangible localisation results that can be felt on the ground."