WBJ/PKPP Lewiatan Business Breakfast: Innovation nation
The state of innovation in the Polish economy was the topic before businesspeople and government representatives during the latest business breakfast organized by WBJ and the Polish Confederation of Private Employers (PKPP) Lewiatan.
The Minister of Science and Higher Education, Michał Seweryński, assured the audience that the government sees the need for radical changes in the R&D sector in order to increase the competitiveness of the Polish economy. Poland's expenditure on R&D ranks at the very bottom of the enlarged European Union. "In 2005 we achieved, if that is the correct word, the lowest point in expenditure on research," Seweryński said. Government spending in the field amounts to just 0.33 percent of GDP, and together with the private sector the figure amounts to 0.6 percent.
Priority number one
"The government's number-one priority is to guarantee a long-lasting increase of financing in the research sector," Seweryński declared. He announced that the government plans to raise funding for R&D by 25 percent of the 2005 figure annually. "We want to achieve the level of expenditure at two percent of GDP in 2010. This would mean a significant, notable increase," the Minister said, pointing out that this figure would be close to the three percent required by the Lisbon Strategy.
"This would place Poland high in the family of European states," Seweryński said.
While the 'Innovative Economy' program will receive EUR 7 (zł.28.3) billion from the 2007-2013 EU budget's funds for Poland, the Deputy Director of the Department for Economic Development in the Economy Ministry, Krzysztof Gulda, estimates that as much as 23 percent could be spent on innovation. "It will take a huge effort on entrepreneurs' part to make use of it and thus guarantee long-lasting growth," he explained.
But increasing expenditure on R&D is just the beginning of the government's plans. "We are preparing a thorough reform of the research sector," Seweryński declared. He underlined that the funds should not be doled out the way they are now, and announced that the Ministry is currently evaluating each of the more than 900 research centers in Poland. In June they will be classified, and only the best ones will receive financial aid from the state budget. "We have to stop financing weak research centers," Seweryński said. "Dispersing the funds will not result in the good use of them."
Support for firms
Gulda thinks that the public administration can play a key role in boosting innovation in Poland. Support from the state budget for companies investing in R&D, mobilizing the private sector using financial incentives and grants, providing help for Polish innovative companies operating abroad, and helping create the necessary infrastructure are among the key challenges facing the government.
It is worth mobilizing the private sector to invest in R&D and innovation, especially with Romania and Bulgaria entering the EU in the near future. "Innovation creates jobs that are long-lasting and are hard to move to another country," the director of the public sector department of IBM Polska, Sylwester Grzebień, said.
Regional power
Furthermore, the Minister promoted the concept of regional research centers. He explained that R&D centers operating in the same region could join together to form larger entities. Seweryński claims that this could improve the transfer of knowledge from the centers to the enterprises operating in the region and the transfer of funds from the economy sector to the R&D centers. Promoting close cooperation between the world of science and the business sector could, in the Minister's opinion, help both.
"There is too much ignorance on both sides," Seweryński said. He criticized universities for failing to meet the needs and expectations of the business world and the market. "Seventy percent of our R&D potential is at the universities. We would like universities to direct their research towards innovation and economy," the Minister underlined.
Great expectations
The expectations of the business world are high. The managing director of APS Energia, Dariusz Drabiuk, has complained about the quality of graduates. "It is not that the education program is worse than before, it just doesn't suit the requirements of the real world," he said.
Seweryński agreed that some changes in higher education programs are needed so that they are more open to the needs of the economy and the market. The Economy Ministry's Gulda thinks that the changes must go even further than adjusting the education program. "To provide personnel for a modern economy we have to create and promote a system of continuous education," he said.
But as Grzebień said, innovation is not just modern technologies and products. "Technology and appliances can be easily bought, it is the business model that decides the company's success," he said, underlining the importance of factors such as modern organization and business culture or management style.
Drabiuk has another recipe for success. He thinks that the state should promote Polish products, and groups of producers could cooperate with the Ministry of Economy to promote products abroad. Most importantly, he views specialization as the key to Poland's success. He claims that Poland is too small and too poor to attack other markets with a wide range of products. "We have to concentrate on certain products and certain markets," Drabiuk said.
Michał Pakulniewicz
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