Pawel barriers triest cebbis_28.06

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The CEBBIS project is implemented through the Central Europe Programme co‐financed by the ERDF

Barriers to innovation for SMEs: a common denominator in Central Europe

Pawel WarszyckiHIE‐RO Hanseatic Institute for Entrepreneurship & Regional Development at

the University of Rostock (DE)

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GLOBAL CHALLENGESvs

TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY

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AIM OF THE ANALYSIS

The aim of the expertise is to provide a technical report with the analysis, identification and description of barriers to innovation development processes of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in different regions in Germany, Italy, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia and Poland.

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METHODOLOGY OF THE SURVEY

Secondary data Investigation on NUTS level highlight the most important national (country level) trends and facts

Primary data Survey made by using questionnaires with experts from different groups of stakeholders

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STRUCTURE OF THE REPORTS

1. Executive summary

2. General characteristics

3. Evaluation of R&D and technology transfer

4. Best practices on technology transfer

5. Recommendations, suggestions and proposals

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DEFINITION OF THE TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY

Technology transfer is the process of sharing of skills, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and

facilities among governments and other institutions to ensure that scientific and technological developments are accessible to a wider range of users who can then further develop and exploit the technology into new products, processes, applications, materials or services. It is closely related

to (and may arguably be considered a subset of) knowledge transfer. Technology brokers are people who discovered how to bridge the disparate

worlds and apply scientific concepts or processes to new situations or circumstances.

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BARRIERS IN THE TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY IN FRIULI VENEZIA GIULIA REGION ‐ ITALY

1. Researchers lack of motivation and information for applicable innovation

2. Lack of communication and of experience in working together

3. Lack of funding because of economic and cultural factors

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1. Researchers lack of motivation and information for applicable innovation

Researchers concentrate on the best research while business focus on their own world to make more profit.

The scientific institutions lack the right practical research approach to global or local level. The researches, which are focused on global level, often are not able to find someone who wants to apply their research results at local level. It is also true that many researchers

focus on the global level but forget the local needs.

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2. Lack of communication and experience of working together

The triple helix governance (administration, business and academics) does not exist. They have a little experience of working with each

other and each has its own perception and concentration.

The Business Development Organisations (BDOs) plays a critical in diffusing the knowledge among actors.

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3. Lack of funding because of economic and cultural factors

In Italy and in the FVG region the investment for research and innovation is not high, because it lacks of culture of doing that. It is still often understood that investment in research and development

is only a cost and there will be no revenues from such action.

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BARRIERS IN THE TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY IN SILESIA REGION (PL)

1. Low interest of innovation at the scientific institutes

2. Low capacity of the scientific institutes in terms of organizational facilities

3. Problem in cooperation and communication with business sector

4. Rigid legal frame work and high bureaucracy

5. Lack of information for cooperation and making decisions

6. Unclear structure and function of the BDOs in the region

7. Low human capacity in BDOs to perform their tasks well

8. Low level of innovation and applying new innovation within SMEs

9. Mistrust in cooperation with BDOs and the scientific institutions

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BARRIERS IN THE TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY IN POLAND

1. Insufficient internal R&D in small and medium‐sized enterprises

2. Low exploitation of patents and licences for manufacturing of innovative products

3. Difficulties in the co‐operation between the enterprise and the research institute

4. Lack of pro‐innovative engineering services for manufacturing companies located in clusters and technological parks

5. Lack of coherence between R&D performed in R&D institutes and universities and the needs of entrepreneurs

6. Lack of clearly defined specialization (sectoral profile) of most of technological parks and clusters

7. Low level of readiness to undertake the risk of economic activity by scientists and researchers

8. Insufficient links between the system of professional education of the youth and labour market

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Monitoring the activities of small enterprises and statistical data reveals that in most of small enterprises internal R&D on new products practically doesn’t exist. The costs to surpass this barrier are impossible to cover for most small entrepreneurs

who generally finance their activities through their own means. Existing venture capital funds and „business angels‟ do not concentrate on finding and supporting small projects – they

prefer to support development of ready made products (even as prototypes) than to decide to finance new product ideas

without any guarantee for success.

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The organizational structure is not optimal – there are funds for facilities like laboratories but no funds for staff. Companies,

however, sometimes have got better laboratories then universities.

The general system of higher education seems to be rather destructive concerning entrepreneurial behavior of researchers.

The decision‐makers at the universities create structural barriers for cooperation with the business

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The education system creates pressure on the scientist to follow the formal career path (i.e. PhD dissertation, habilitation,

number of scientific publications etc.). For a typical scientist at the university or R&D institutes the priority is the number of

publications and not the number of innovations. Therefore, they have not got enough time for applied science in cooperation

with business.

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The communication between the scientist and business sector is another barrier. Information flow about existing solution from

the science to business is missing. Universities lock the information on the research results if they were financed by public funds – it causes double work on technology‐based

solutions. Communication language of scientists is too difficult for both business and decision‐makers. However,

communication among scientists is also problematic. There is not efficient dissemination of the information about already existing solutions developed by researchers at universities.

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BARRIERS IN THE TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY IN REGIONS BRANDENBURG

AND STUTTGART ‐ GERMANY

1. Low interests for innovation for SMEs at the scientific institutes

2. Low capacity of the scientific institutes to work with business sector

3. Problem in cooperation and communication with business sector

4. Rigid and high bureaucracy

5. Lack of information for making decisions

6. Unclear structure and function of the BDOs in the region

7. Low level of innovation and applying new innovation within SMEs

8. Low efficient cooperation among all actors involved in TT

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The barriers within the scientific institute are traditional career path, organisational, structure and bureaucracy. The education system creates pressure on the scientist to follow the formal career path i.e. PhD dissertation, habilitation. The evaluation system of the scientists‘ performance force them to focus more

on the basic research and publishing of its results then on applied research (research publication). Therefore, the priority of the scientist is the number of publications and not the number of

innovations.

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University staff is obliged to focus on their own projects financed by external funds (like DFG). The projects within companies have

not got the same status in work evaluation of researchers. Besides, the preparation process at universities (e.g. permission, negotiation procedures, flexibility etc.) for the projects linked to

the business is much too long.

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Decision‐makers do not have sufficient know‐how concerning specific business sectorial character. Lots of actions are established not close enough to the real business life.

Funds planning process too often is not based on the analysis. The lack of input information causes decision taken by heart.

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There is not enough transparency in the BDOs structure on the regional level – too complex structure. There are overlaps of the BDOs activities because of their too general character / tasks. It is too less thematic focus of existing BDOs and therefore lack of

specialization

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BARRIERS IN THE TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY IN CZECH REPUBLIC

1. Insufficient demand from Czech companies for the results of R&D

2. Difficult orientation in R&D offer and its usefulness (lack of evaluation tools)

3. Poor access to finances

4. Not transparent legislation system (especially for spin‐offs or start‐ups)

5. Unsatisfactory level of cooperation between organizations within/and related networks

6. Lack of motivation and conservative thinking of R&D personnel

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1. insufficient demand from Czech companies for the results of R&D, which is probably caused not only by lack of funds in

smaller companies, but also by the orientation of firms to use yet relatively cheap labor and products with lower added value (in the survey, more than half of companies said that advantage

in foreign markets are understood to be a low cost of their products).

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2. difficult orientation in R&D offer and its usefulness (lack of evaluation tools)

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3. Very important aspect of the commercialization of R&D are spin‐off companies. The survey showed that the greatest barrier

to the emergence of such firms in R&D institutions is represented by poor access to finance (particularly pre‐seed and

seed capital).

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4. Legislation is complicated as well and very important role dwells in prejudices of academics and institutional culture

focused mainly on academic research.

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5. Cooperation between organizations and related networking is also unsatisfactory. The concept of clusters and their importance for regional economic development is not

appreciated yet in the public or private sector. Clusters are not yet a crucial priority for public policies to sub‐national level

neither.

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6. Lack of motivation and conservative thinking of R&D personnel, who consider research as an "academic game" without

practical outcomes. This reasoning applies to an evaluation system of R&D as well, which results are not yet sufficiently

linked to the allocation of public funds for research

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BARRIERS IN THE TRANSFER OF TECHNOLOGY IN HUNGARY

1. Low capacities on R&D

2. Organizational problems

3. University‐Industry co‐operation

4. Imbalance between supply and demand of educated workforce

5. Issues of SMEs

6. Sectoral heterogenity

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1. Low capacities on R&D

The state owned industrial research institutes with high capacities have disappeared. Parallel, the industrial R&D capacities have decreased.

Fundamentally, these processes led to the currently operate R&D structure that has three main pillars. The most developed part of the R&D institutions is the higher education (especially universities), that have been followed by the institution network of Hungarian Academy of Sciences. They mostly concentrate on basic

research and cannot give answers to the practical economic needs.

Most of the economic actors, especially the largest proportion of enterprises (SMEs) have no direct R&D capacities on the one hand and mobilized external R&D

capacities on the other. It means that the innovative, Hungarian private owned SMEs with high development potential cannot integrate their ideas to innovation

chain, so most of the ideas stagnate at early development phase.

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2. Organizational problems

In the current situation the structure of the national innovation system is fragmented and the coordination is not dedicated to one national level body. Additionally there have been many types of regional or local level

intermediaries with overlapping activities in this filed. The basic innovation services are given by many intermediaries, while services with high added

values are missing in many fields.

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3. University‐Industry co‐operation

The universities have well developed co‐operation with large companies, through formal agreements int he most cases. Up against it, SMEs have special needs with low number of items. This need cannot be fitted to the R&D structure of universities. Additionally the universities already have their own technology transfer offices that could be good to manage

external co‐operations, but these bodies only work for their internal needs.

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4. Unbalance between supply and demand of educated workforce

Especially the two partner regions – but broadly the whole country – faces the problem that supply of well educated workforce at some fields

(especially engineering) is not available locally. More than 80% of the graduated entrants have degree on social or economic sciences, while about two third of the job opportunities connected to engineering.

Additionally, the training of technicians have decreased in the past two decades to its 30%, while the demand have increased.

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5. Issues of SMEs

Hungarian regional development policy manage SMEs as a unified group of enterprises, while only 10‐15% of them can be characterized as an innovative firm. All the supporting instruments and initiatives are developed for the SMEs as a whole, that do not fit to the needs of

innovative ones in most of the cases.

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6. Sectoral heterogenity

By knowing the economic characteristics of Hungary and especially the two partner regions, the sectoral heterogenity of the regional economies is clear. It might be an advantage, but practivally it means that there is no

clear „image” of the regions and there are no clear branchspecific strategies and supporting instruments. Currently the economic

characteristics of the regions are determined by the forieign owned large companies.

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SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

The CEBBIS project is implemented through the Central Europe Programme co‐financed by the ERDF

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Ulmenstraße 69 ‐ Haus 318051 Rostock

phone: +49 381 498 5630E‐mail: pawel.warszycki@hie‐ro.de

www.hie‐ro.de

Pawel WarszyckiHIE‐RO Hanseatic Institute for Entrepreneurship

& Regional Development at the University of Rostock (DE)

Pawel barriers triest cebbis_28.06

Technology

Transcript of Pawel barriers triest cebbis_28.06