중소기업정책 60년사 고찰: 기술 분야를 중심으로

Abstract

Korea's SME policy celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2020, since the establishment of the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Division in the Ministry of Commerce in 1960. In this study, looking back on the 60 years of SMEs, the processes and contents of technology innovation policy development for SMEs have been reviewed, summarized, and evaluated. In this study, the development process of technology innovation policy for SMEs since the 1960s was divided into 7 stages. While the 1960s was the embryonic phase of technology support policies for SMEs, the 1970s was the formation phase of the technology development policy for SMEs. The 1980s was the establishment phase of the technology innovation support system for SMEs. 1990s can be divided into two periods. The early 1990s was the SME competition promotion phase, while the late 1990s was the venture nurturing phase. The 2000s was the phase of nurturing innovative SMEs, and finally the 2010s were viewed as a phase of securing growth engines and promoting innovative growth. In addition, in this study, four directions for the development of SME innovation policy were presented: ① goal-oriented R&D policy, ② expansion of innovative and destructive R&D, ③ fostering of local SMEs, and ④ R&D in collaboration among industry, university, and government. Eight major tasks for SMEs' technological innovation policy were proposed. This study emphasizes that Korea's technology innovation policy for SMEs should focus on fostering innovative small and medium-sized enterprises with competitiveness in the global market while creating new opportunities for growth engines.