Seoul Hongneung and the small strong special zones in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, Incheon Seo-gu and Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province, received the top “excellent” rating in last year’s annual assessment.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Innopolis Foundation announced the results of the 2025 annual assessment conducted on 14 small strong special zones on Monday.

Small strong special zones are small, high-density R&D clusters centred on core technology institutions such as universities and government-funded research institutes, aimed at spreading and commercialising R&D成果. The assessment covered 14 zones that carried out the 2025 zone development programme. It evaluated six indicators across three areas: development programme performance, member satisfaction, and local governments’ contributions to zone development. It focused in particular on whether each zone generated major outcomes such as technology transfer and investment attraction by leading companies, and entry into global markets.

The assessment found that Seoul Hongneung, Pohang, Incheon Seo-gu and Jinju earned the excellent rating as their differentiated support for technology commercialisation was recognised for delivering large-scale investment attraction and overseas market expansion results.

The Seoul Hongneung small strong special zone achieved the largest corporate investment attraction among the zones, totalling 75.4 billion won, centred on advanced bio. Endorobotics, a research institute company for endoscopic surgical robots, received support for transfer of the zone’s core technology and for supplying products to a core technology institution hospital. It became the first in South Korea to obtain the U.S. Food and Drug Administration medical device clearance code “NAY”. It attracted 32.5 billion won in Series C investment and signed an exclusive distribution contract with global medical device company Olympus.

The Pohang small strong special zone focused on supporting new materials companies. Graphene materials company Graphene Square received about 11.0 billion won in subsidies from Pohang City and support for graphene mass-production facilities from Pohang University of Science and Technology. It built the world’s first mass-production plant for graphene film. Advanced bio materials company Celloid attracted 9.0 billion won in Series A investment with support for product advancement and development of overseas sales channels. It also signed research agreements with overseas universities and biotech companies, including Johns Hopkins University.

The Incheon Seo-gu small strong special zone expanded domestic and overseas networks and global cooperation projects centred on environmental technology. It held the Incheon International Environmental Technology Exhibition with a total of 843 participants, showcasing overseas technologies and products. Roots Lab, a company that makes eco-friendly cosmetics ingredients based on agricultural byproducts, signed export contracts worth $2 million with overseas cosmetics companies including Chanel.

The Jinju small strong special zone fostered many aerospace companies. Aircraft engineering company ANH Structure, based on support for technology transfer and company development, received an A grade in a technology special listing evaluation and succeeded in mass-producing lightweight composite parts for Boeing’s B737 aircraft. Aircraft assembly and processing company SD Aero achieved results supplying parts such as rear fuselage sections to Boeing and Embraer, supported by overseas certification consulting and R&D assistance.

Eun-young Lee (이은영), director general for research outcome innovation at the ministry, said, “Small strong special zones have created development outcomes in specialised fields through industry-academia-research cooperation centred on core technology institutions.” She added, “We will support them so they can create successful models suited to regional and industrial characteristics, including investment linkages, network building and entry into global markets.”