CORDIS Archive

The newsletter of the European Commission's Innovation Directorate

	INNOVATION IN GREECE
		Changing the focus of business
		A massive public-sector programme to support research and technological development over the past 15 years has stimulated a change in approach to innovation in Greece and a significant improvement in productivity. A new attitude to research is emerging, while business investment is also increasing.

reece is dominated by small enterprises, mainly in the medium or low-technology, traditional sectors such as food, wood, paper and textiles. At present, these types of company serve local markets and have low export potential. "The demand for innovation in these industries is very limited, but the real need is high," says Professor Nicos Komninos, head of Aristotle University's urban and regional innovation research unit, Urenio, in Thessaloniki. "The important issue for Greece is to modernise traditional industries and at the same time develop new industrial sectors."

University research is strong, but there is not yet a well-established pattern of creating spin-off companies to use research results, protected by patents, for exploitation and commercial development. Vassilis Tsakalos, manager of IRC Help-Forward, one of Greece's two Innovation Relay Centres, says that researchers still publish their results in scientific papers or keep them within the laboratory, and are not used to seeking patents. "That is a new approach," he says, "a culture change that cannot happen in just a year or two. Also, investors welcome the idea of new technology, but then they see the risks and are put off unless their other investments are more certain. When you do not have a critical mass of projects, you cannot take the risk."