Poland makes major innovation investment

The Polish Ministry of Regional Development has announced that it wants to earmark €10bn for companies working together with universities on high-tech innovative products.

The Ministry of Regional Development is in charge of allocating €73bn Poland will receive from EU 2014-2020 budget for the purpose of closing the gap between Poland and more developed EU members.

Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the minister of regional development, said: “We have quite a lot of innovative companies. We have to really push them and give them a chance to develop, by giving them a lot of money.

“Our companies do not spend money on their own innovations. They prefer to buy the ideas from abroad. We will try to change this way of thinking.”

The minister also added that Polish companies could follow the model of Nokia in its growth years, and that she thinks Poland has a lot of potential in developing highly innovative technologies, but companies frequently overlook that potential and are more interested in purchasing technologies from multinational corporations than investing them in Polish R&D firms and university institutes.

It is hoped that the allocation of funding will help to close the gap between Poland and other EU members, given that the latest Innovation Union Scoreboard, compiled by the European Commission, placed Poland 24th out of 27 member states.