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KEI — Korea Entrepreneurship Initiative
Research

Empirical foundations for innovation and policy

Four connected lines of work. Each produces something a city, agency or university can act on — a position, an evaluation, a comparison, or a plan.

Area 01

Ecosystem Diagnostics

We measure and benchmark startup ecosystems across cities and regions using global standards and rigorous data analysis.

A city-level diagnostic combines quantitative indicators — company density, funding events, exits, talent supply, infrastructure — with structured interviews of founders, investors and support organisations.

Results are reported against comparable domestic and international cities so that a local government can see where it actually stands rather than where it believes it stands.

Publications in this area

Area 02

Policy Research

We conduct comparative policy studies that support evidence-based entrepreneurship policy design, evaluation and strategic development.

Programme evaluation, comparative reviews of national and municipal support schemes, and impact analysis of specific interventions.

Every study states its data sources, its method and its limitations, so findings can be re-examined by others.

Publications in this area

Area 03

Global Collaboration Research

Working with international partners, we assess Korea’s startup ecosystem competitiveness on the world stage.

Joint research, ecosystem mapping and consulting with international research groups and universities.

Cross-country comparison places Korean cities inside a global reference set rather than a domestic-only ranking.

Publications in this area

Area 04

Strategic Roadmapping

We translate research findings into actionable growth strategies and implementation roadmaps for cities and institutions.

A roadmap sets out sequenced actions, the body responsible for each, and the indicator that will show whether it worked.

Deliverables are written to be executable by the client’s own staff, not only readable by researchers.

Publications in this area
Methodology

How a KEI study is built

The same five stages apply whether the deliverable is a city diagnostic, a programme evaluation or an international comparison.

  1. 01

    Scope and question

    We start from the decision the client has to make, then define what would have to be true for each option. That fixes the indicators before any data is collected.

  2. 02

    Quantitative baseline

    Company registries, funding and exit records, patent and talent data, and infrastructure indicators are assembled into a comparable city-level dataset.

  3. 03

    Qualitative validation

    Structured interviews with founders, investors and support organisations test whether the numbers describe what practitioners actually experience.

  4. 04

    Benchmarking

    The city is positioned against a domestic peer group and an international reference set, so its score has a meaning outside the study.

  5. 05

    Roadmap and handover

    Findings become sequenced actions, each with a responsible body and an indicator that will show whether it worked.

Note

Indicator definitions, weightings and data sources for each instrument are published alongside the study they belong to. If a figure in a KEI report cannot be traced to a stated source, treat it as an error and tell us — we will correct it.