South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT designated 27 exemplary corporate in-house research labs for the first half of 2026 and held a certificate-awarding ceremony on July 21.

The “exemplary corporate research lab designation programme,” introduced in 2017, is designed to promote qualitative growth of corporate in-house research labs and spread best practices. Including the 27 newly designated labs, a total of 421 labs have been designated as exemplary corporate research labs so far.

The labs designated in the first half of this year include 15 in manufacturing and 12 in services. The companies invest an average of about 4 percent of revenue in research and development (R&D). The share of specialist staff with master’s or doctoral degrees averaged at least 34.3 percent of total research personnel.

The ministry selected three labs as “best of the best” corporate in-house research labs after a separate review and recommendations by a panel of judges: hy Central Research Institute, Autonics R&D Center and the Hyosung Electric-affiliated Technology Research Institute.

hy Central Research Institute has developed functional materials and probiotics based on a lactic acid bacteria library of more than 5,000 types and strain improvement technology. Autonics R&D Center develops and produces about 6,000 industrial automation products in-house and secured South Korea’s first commercialisation technology for LiDAR sensors. The Hyosung Electric-affiliated Technology Research Institute secured capabilities for lightweight design of automotive motors and low-noise design.

The ministry will provide designated labs with certificates and plaques and offer benefits such as preferential treatment when participating in national R&D projects and when being designated as a company eligible for alternative military service, as well as government awards. It also plans to strengthen the support system for corporate in-house research labs based on the Act on Supporting R&D for Corporate In-house Research Institutes, which took effect in February.