Poland's reindustrialisation to be based on local research - minister
The government will set up a council for innovation and help design a Pact for Technical Sciences in order to increase collaboration between science and business for the reindustrialisation of Poland, according to deputy PM and Science Minister Jaroslaw Gowin
"Technological universities are the main partner for business in the work of modernising the Polish economy - building what is known ... as a knowledge-based economy", Gowin told reporters in Gdynia on Monday after a conference of the heads of Poland's technological universities.
Gowin pointed out that in recent years Poland had gained many research centres and had research infrastructure often of world standard, but added that this had not translated into increased implementation of research findings.
"Very interesting scientific projects are conducted, but there is no money to implement them", the minister said, explaining that large state-run companies so far had not been interested in such implementation, small businesses had insufficient potential for it, while large foreign corporations had their own research centres in other countries.
The aim of the present government is to reindustrialise Poland on the basis of the resources of Polish science, according to Gowin. "In the long term, the Polish economy will be innovative if we have innovative science", he said.
The Pact for Technical Sciences, which the Conference of Rectors of Polish Technological Universities (KRPUT) has invited the Ministry of Science and Higher Education to help design, "is a very valuable initiative showing that the scientific community itself feels a need for closer cooperation with the world of business", Gowin remarked.
"The pact is to catalogue all the measures necessary to make sure that the economy can take greater advantage of the achievements of Polish science", the minister also said.
Gowin announced that the government would soon appoint a council for innovation. The new body is to include three deputy PMs and the heads of "a few ministries of key importance from the point of view of innovation in the economy", the minister explained. (PAP)
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