In 2010-2012, the audited higher education schools completed nearly 5 thousand research projects (worth a bit less than PLN 730 million) and received 906 patents and protection rights. Only about 6 percent of projects (283) concerned developmental, targeted and commissioned research, that is the types of research whose results could be used in practice. From the whole group of research projects the results of only 95 percent of them were used in the economy. Nearly 2/3 of research projects were implemented thanks to two of sixteen audited higher education schools (Gdańsk and Poznań Technical Universities).
Academic technology transfer centres are statutorily obliged to sell the results of research and developmental works or transfer them free of charge to the economy. According to NIK, they often do not perform these tasks properly. They also did not support the research authors in their search for entrepreneurs interested in implementing their work results in the economy. Instead of focusing on academic research and developmental works, the universities channelled their cooperation into the implementation of joint EU projects, organisation of student training or development of expert opinions.
The main reason why the technology transfer to the economy is so ineffective is the system of dividing funds for science. The types of research having the greatest importance for the state’s technological development are not given the highest priority. The criteria for evaluating academic units implemented by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education do not support such technology transfer, either. These indicators promote schools which submitted more patent applications or received more patents, no matter if they could be used in practice.
The activity of eight audited science parks also did not bring considerable effects for the economy, although it took more than PLN 800 million to build them and another PLN 175 million was spent on the parks’ operation in the period covered by the audit. NIK points out that technology firms make up only 1/3 of entrepreneurs operating there. The park management companies offered them little help to obtain funds for innovative undertakings or search for new technologies. As a consequence, in the period 2010 - 2012 only every fifth company (87 of 421) operating in the audited parks implemented new technology solutions for practical use. However, as many as 8 implementations were made in companies located in the Wrocław Technology Park.
NIK is of the opinion that science parks are unnecessarily established in the regions with a small number of technologically advanced companies. Besides, they should be located closer to the universities which succeed in transferring academic research results to the industry. That is why, there are either no technological companies in parks or there are very few of them. As a consequence, support is also addressed to the entrepreneurs that should not use it. In that way the science parks become more similar to industrial parks.
In this context the results of the EU countries’ innovativeness ranking published by the European Commission are no surprise. Poland has taken the 24th position there, before Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria. Some of our weaknesses include cooperation between the science and business and a fall - from more than 17 percent to 14 percent - in the number of small and medium enterprises implementing innovations, whereas the EU average in this area exceeds 38 percent.
