Due to the structural low-growth around the globe and the advent of the 4th Industrial Revolution, industrial and regional policy see a paradigm shift. Industrial policies shift from ‘picking or backing winners’ to ‘matching winners’. ‘Matching winners’ industrial policy aims to promote the collaboration among the main agents and the convergence of the related industries within the region. In other words, this policy emphasizes on the implementation of innovation ecosystem based on the matching winners in the region.At the same time the regional policy shifts from ‘the spatially blind regional policy’ to ‘the place-based regional policy’. And the placebased regional policy is the rationale behind the ‘smart specialization’ driven by the EU combined with the matching winners industrial policy. In line with the policy paradigm shift, a place-based regional industrial policy such as the implementation of the innovation ecosystem and the smart specialization strategy emerges. This policy aims to facilitate collaboration among the main innovation agents within the region or cluster, and to promote convergence of forward & backward related industries.Meanwhile, the regional industry policy of Korea has created base for the promotion of regional industries, which resulted in the growth of the non-capital regions as base for the manufacturing sector. However, due to the key manufacturing sector crisis since 2010, these regions have been faced with industrial restructuring. In particular, regional economy of the non-capital regions with high dependence on a specific industry namely shipbuilding, petrochemistry, steel, and automobile, and a specific conglomerate requires robust industrial restructuring. Hence, despite on-going implementation of its regional industry policy, Korea continues to see development gap between the capital region and the other regions. Instead, the non-capital regions have declined their importance in the economic indicators such as employment of the whole industrial manpower, GRDP (gross regional domestic product) and added value of manufacturing, relative to the whole country.This brings about concerns over inefficient industrial development of Korean economy due to spatial disparities of economic activity. That is, such spatial disparities increase as research and development (R&D) and higher value-added services functions are developed around the Capital Region while manufacturing function is concentrated in the non-capital regions. It will put a roadblock in the way of implementation of place based innovation ecosystem build-up and smart specialization strategies required for the industrial development of the 4th industrial revolution.This study seeks strategies for the new place based development of regional industry in order to overcome the structural causes of underdevelopment of regional economy and to lead the 4th industrial revolution. To do so, it examines the development of and policy issues on the ‘Smart Regional Innovation Systems (Smart RIS),’ which is suitable for the circumstances of the regional industries in Korea.This brings about concerns over inefficient industrial development of Korean economy due to spatial disparities of economic activity. That is, such spatial disparities increase as research and development (R&D) and higher value-added services functions are developed around the Capital Region while manufacturing function is concentrated in the non-capital regions. It will put a roadblock in the way of implementation of place based innovation ecosystem build-up and smart specialization strategies required for the industrial development of the 4th industrial revolution.This study seeks strategies for the new place based development of regional industry in order to overcome the structural causes of underdevelopment of regional economy and to lead the 4th industrial revolution. To do so, it examines the development of and policy issues on the ‘Smart Regional Innovation Systems (Smart RIS),’ which is suitable for the circumstances of the regional industries in Korea
