Slovakia calls for its own R&D target

The Slovak government has set itself the goal of investing 1.8% of its budget for GDP in research and development (R&D) by 2015. This target, smaller than 3% target for the EU as a whole by 2020, is still to be negotiated. EURACTIV Slovakia reports.

According to the country's deputy prime minister for the knowledge society, European affairs, human rights and minorities, Dušan ?aplovi?, Slovakia has ''a tradition of planning everything in five-year or ten-year terms and from our experience, we don't consider setting numbers without real analysis as natural: because they are unrealisable''.

The government would prefer to see more output-oriented measures, he said.

?aplovi?'s words echo those of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. Fico has expressed concern that the 'Europe 2020' initiative will suffer the same fate as its predecessor, the Lisbon Strategy, because some of the targets – including the 3% GDP target for R&D – are in his words unattainable.

In fact, the 3% target for investment in R&D is for the EU as a whole. Some older members are near or even above the target, while the newcomers are lagging behind (see Positions).

Fico proposed that the country launch its own plan for expenditure on R&D. ''The long-term target of Slovakia is to invest 1.8% of GDP in the research and development area by the end of 2015,'' he stated.

Yet Slovak officials recognise the urgent need to improve the R&D situation in Slovakia – citing the lack of basic infrastructure and the huge gap between the capital Bratislava and the rest of the country as two of the biggest problems.

To tackle the shortcomings, the government launched a special operational programme (OP) dedicated to meeting its targets. ''We are one of few countries to have built a special research and development OP, where we allocated a significant sum of money from EU funds,'' said Prime Minister Fico in an interview with Slovak press agency TASR.

With a budget of €1.2 billion, the R&D programme is the country's fourth-largest OP after those for transport, regional development and health care.

Public vs. private investment

The Slovak government predicts that two-thirds of its 1.8% research target will be funded by the private sector. Some consider this a bold statement, considering that around 52% of funding currently comes from public sources, only 34% comes from private sources and the remaining 14% comes from abroad.

Unlike the government, private companies still believe public investment in R&D is insufficient and do not just see an increase in government spending as a number, but as a necessity.

''If the Slovak economy is to successfully develop further, we have to significantly scale up public expenditure in order to support our R&D. I stress the words 'public expenditure'. Moreover, we need to fundamentally change and improve measures through which our state supports these activities,'' said Martin Bruncko, founder and CEO of Neulogy, a private R&D and knowledge-management company.

''That is the only way to lure more private investment in this particular area and hence improve the competitiveness of our country,'' he explained, adding that ''in terms of research, we are now tens of years behind other small EU countries like Denmark, Finland and Austria''.

According to government data, Slovakia is now spending around 1.2% of its GDP on R&D and innovation. Although this may not seem enough, the figure has grown significantly in recent years. According to the European Innovation Scoreboard for 2009, ''Slovak innovation performance is well below the EU-27 average but the rate of improvement is above that of the EU 27''.

However, quantity does not always mean quality. ''We annually invest around €1 billion in research and development but our potential is decreasing,'' says Milan Gregor, chairman of HLG ManauFuture SK, a company.

Deputy Prime Minister ?aplovi? admitted that ''though government spending in research and development has grown significantly over the years, Slovakia is still at the bottom of EU and OECD charts in this area".

"The number of Slovak researchers is below average and we also lag behind in other output indicators such as patents, publications and quotations,'' he added. 

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