Over the past three decades, the average per capita income in Poland has increased from around 40% to over 70% of the level observed in EU countries. It is a considerable achievement. Pursuing this trajectory will be difficult if Poland does not increase the degree of innovation of its companies which, measured by the degree of technological advancement of exported products, is around the average of the member countries of the OECD.
To increase innovation, a determined state policy is needed, because its main factors – science, education, regulatory institutions and lack of barriers to entrepreneurship – are public goods provided by the state.
A nation which recovered its country in 1918, after 123 years of occupation, could not have a high quality higher education system in 1891 when Marie Skłodowska decided to leave to continue her work in research institutes in France. Later, the organization of the communist economy and the dependence on the Soviet Union meant that the greatest scientific achievements were the work of Poles who, after World War II, did not return to a country again enslaved. The Nobel Prizes of Poles working in the United States – Andrzej Schalla’s 1977 in medicine, Leon Hurwicz’s 2007 in economics – are clear proof of this.
Like education, entrepreneurship has also suffered greatly from the vagaries of history. Under the conditions of partitions and consecutive bids, Polish entrepreneurs struggled to circumvent the discriminatory constraints of the oppressors, while the communist bureaucratized economy went so far as to penalize the entrepreneurial spirit.
In recent years, Poland has boosted its actions in favor of creating better conditions for increasing innovation in the Polish economy: the budget for higher education and R & D is constantly increasing, we is implementing new regulatory solutions (strong tax incentives for innovators) and government policy is geared towards supporting innovations in industries providing Poland with cleaner energy, transport and air.
Poland is increasing the education budget and Polish students are now among the best in the PISA rankings – especially in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). We are strengthening research organizations specializing in areas relating to robotization and digitization. On the other hand, the budgets that private companies allocate to R & D are too modest. Polish companies are, in fact, still too small to devote considerable resources capable of bringing about significant innovations.
Venture capital. Budgets for innovation should be provided by entities capable of measuring risk and withstanding any negative effects of failure. The Polish government has therefore decided to support the creation of venture capital type entities which, over time, will be able to fully bear the risk of investing in innovation.
The examples of other countries that succeed in increasing innovation performance – Finland, Israel, South Korea – show that it can take up to two decades between the time when the investment is made and when the investment is made. we get a positive result. Realizing that increasing innovation will be a long-term process, the Polish government is pushing Poland on this path.
Aleksander Surdej is Polish Ambassador to the OECD, Economist, Professor at Krakow Economic University.
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