Science and Technology Park as Regional Innovation Platform: A Case of Chungnam Techno Park, Korea - Technopolis: Best Practices for Science and Technology Cities - page 380

2 Foreseers and Innovators of Chungnam Technopark
2.1 Early Foreseers
The province of Chungnam used to be an agricultural area in Korea until 1995. In
May 1995, local university professors began to discuss about the creation of a
technology park in Chungnam Province. They organized the research group to
persuade the local university presidents. The association of 17 university presi-
dents supported the professors' vision to create a technology park in Chungnam,
and became a strong lobby group to the provincial governor.
When the local university professors and provincial government officials pro-
posed the plan to create a technology park to the central government, the central
government responded that the program was too good to designate only one
province. That was the first step to create a technology park in Korea. It was
initiated by the local university professors in Chungnam Province. They were
foreseers.
In two years, the central government enacted the special bill on ''technology-
driven industrial complex,'' and prepared the budget for creating six model
technology parks in the nation. The local university professors actively contributed
to the implementation of the project for the central government. But, Chungnam
was a weak candidate at the moment, compared to the industrialized cities such as
Seoul, Busan, and Daejeon. All of 16 provincial level governments applied to the
technology park project. Professors and government officials from Chungnam
worked hard to complete a proposal for the project. They received a big Christmas
gift from the central government on 23rd December 1997. It was surprising news
that Chungnam was chosen. Seoul, Busan, and Daejeon failed to get the techno-
park project at that time.
In 1999, CTP began its business at the old city hall of Asan. The Asan city
government donated its old city hall to induce the CTP's headquarter. The city hall
became a business incubation center as well as CTP's main office. But CTP needed
a bigger space rather than a small office building. The first President of CTP whose
previous position was deputy governor found a decent farmland of 45 acres in
Cheonan city. CTP obtained the Farmers' Education Institute from the Chungnam
provincial government as a form of donation.
The university professors organized a research group to conduct a master plan
for CTP on the farmland in 2000. They brought the government officials and staff
members to advance countries' science parks for benchmarking. Their bench-
marking parks include Surrey Research Park, Cambridge Science Park, Sophia
Antipolis, Dortmund Technology Park, and Kumamoto Technopolis. They learned
that their technopark should be a campus for researchers, entrepreneurs, business
service professionals, and local people. They also learned that their technopark
should stimulate and manage the knowledge to commercialization (Chungnam
techno park 2009a ).