Survey finds Polish businesses reluctant to collaborate with academia
Polish businesses are reluctant to collaborate with academia on research and development (R&D), or take risks in creating their own technological innovations. These are just some of the findings of a survey conducted by the Polish Confederation of Private Employers (KPP) Lewiatan on behalf of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education (MNiSW). The survey found that collaboration between business and academia in Poland is rare. Only 44% of companies said they had cooperated with a public research institute or university over the past two years. This suggests that firms have far fewer opportunities to outsource their research, which may explain why business R&D investment in Poland has fallen in recent times, from 0.28% of GDP in 1998 to 0.16% in 2003. Of the businesses surveyed, many spend most of their annual investment on new equipment and infrastructure, mainly buildings and machines (over 80% of expenditure in total). Only 7.5% of investments are used to finance research on new technologies or products. 'The largest Polish companies, i.e. companies whose net profits are approximately PLN 2 billion [€526 million], spend around PLN 10 million [€2.6 million] annually on research. We have to find a way of explaining to them that if they want to survive on the market and develop for longer than till the end of the board's term, they must change their attitude to innovation,' said deputy Minister of Science Olaf Gajl. Mr Gajl said that the government was continually looking to develop facilities and subsidies for projects on which scientists and entrepreneurs could work together. Many of the businesses interviewed said that there were also too many risks involved in financing innovations. The main risk factors cited were the costs of designing and implementing innovative solutions and lack of a market demand for innovative technologies in the Poland. According to Malgorzata Starczewska-Krzysztofek, a representative of KPP Lewiatan, the Polish market does not encourage home-grown innovation, so Polish companies prefer to import known solutions from other countries, which are far less risky. 'Unfortunately, at the moment a client who comes to a shop in Poland to buy an iron has a choice of a more expensive innovative iron or a traditional iron, which is cheaper by a few per cent, and he will usually opt for the cheaper version,' explained Ms Starczewska-Krzysztofek a representative of KPP Lewiatan. But plans are afoot in Poland to boost private investment in R&D and create the right conditions for innovation. In its National Development Plan (NDP) for 2007 to 2013, the Polish government states its intention to: - increase access to financing sources for business, in particular in fields which are characterised by a comparative advantage in relation to external competitors; - support the use of intellectual property in the economy; - develop infrastructure for innovation; - develop an institutional system and organisational support for entrepreneurship, inter alia through development of a system of advisory and training services; - organise a system of incentives to increase R&D expenditure in the private sector; - continue reforming the R&D sector in Poland by consolidating research teams and concentrating sources in selected fields of scientific activity crucial for the competitiveness of the Polish economy.
Countries
Poland