Despite possessing competitive climate technologies, South Korea’s ecosystem faces a chronic valley of death at the demonstration phase, where technologies stagnate at the commercialization stage due to rigid institutional constraints and a limited domestic market. To address these structural bottlenecks, this study redefines global Research, Development, and Demonstration (RD&D) in developing countries as a strategic “spatial fix” and an innovation pathway for technological completion, moving beyond conventional unilateral foreign aid. Centering on Korea’s Carbon-Neutral 100 Core Technologies, the methodology employs a three-phase supplier-driven co-alignment framework grounded in a logic model specifically tailored for climate technology demonstration within developing-country contexts. The first phase initiates from the supplier side with a strategic analysis involving a sequential screening process, conducted first by policy experts to ensure alignment with national strategic initiatives for global cooperation, and subsequently by technical experts to evaluate R&D necessity and technological rewards at the elemental technology level. The second phase matches these supplier priorities with the official climate demands of recipient countries through Nationally Designated Entities (NDEs), ensuring institutional receptiveness and inter-governmental alignment. The third phase concludes with a final supplier-side verification by multidisciplinary committees - comprising technology, policy, and commercialization specialists -utilizing the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to prioritize projects based on demonstration feasibility and strategic interests. Findings indicate that sustainable global RD&D hinges on the strategic “push” from suppliers, which is precisely integrated with the “pull” of recipient countries. Ultimately, transitioning national policy toward a reciprocal incentive structure will invigorate global RD&D cooperation and facilitate the international commercialization of carbon-neutral technologies, thereby providing a vital strategic mechanism for South Korean suppliers to successfully bridge the valley of death at the demonstration phase.
Jung et al. (Sat,) studied this question.