Exchange

Entrepreneurial ecosystems are linked across borders. Startups expand abroad within their first years, venture capital moves between countries, and talent and technology follow them.

Governments learn from each other too. Many of the instruments now used to support startups, from public funds of funds to accelerator programmes, have spread from one country to another.

Reports and statistics can describe another country’s policy, but they cannot show how it works in practice: how a programme is run, how founders use it, and what the people who deliver it have learned.

IFEED Exchange makes that first-hand learning possible, through visits and meetings between people who work on entrepreneurial ecosystem policy in Korea and in other countries.

About

IFEED Exchange is IFEED’s programme of international exchange in entrepreneurial ecosystem policy. It connects people who work on policy for SMEs and startups in Korea with their counterparts in the UK and other countries, and it runs throughout the year.

Exchange works in both directions. Groups from Korea, such as officials, support organisations, university startup centres and accelerators, visit ecosystems abroad. Groups from other countries visit Korea to see how its government, public agencies and universities support SMEs and startups.

Each programme is arranged around the group’s questions. It combines meetings with public bodies, universities, support organisations, investors and startups, so that participants can see a policy from the side of those who design it, those who deliver it and those who use it.

IFEED’s research provides the background for each programme. Our reports read Korean policy alongside the policy of Japan, China, the UK, the US, France and Germany, so that every visit starts from a comparison of the ecosystems involved.

After each programme, participants share what they have learned, and the questions it raises feed back into IFEED’s research, symposia and conference.

Aims

• Comparison. See how other countries support SMEs and startups, and compare their policy with Korea’s.
• Connection. Connect officials, researchers, support organisations and founders in Korea with their counterparts abroad.
• Cooperation. Lay the ground for joint research and cooperation between ecosystems in different countries.

Duration

Throughout the year.