Gowin: PLN 400 million for the development of innovation in the regions

"One of the key objectives of the plan of Prime Minister Morawiecki is to identify the sectors of the economy with the greatest potential. But we also want to these industries to be concentrated in specific regions, so that each of the Polish provinces has their economic specialization" - said Gowin.

He added that the process of determining specializations was carried out from the bottom up, and in consultation with the marshals of provinces. This work resulted in formulating 26 research areas, named Regional Scientific and Research Agendas (Regionalne Agendy Naukowo-Badawcze, RANB).

"In previous years there was focus on the development of locomotives, the provinces that have the greatest industrial potential, such as Warsaw, Silesia, Wielkopolska and Malopolska. It turned out that these locomotives quickly broke away from the cars. Instead of pulling together other regions, they would rather run away, creating a gap in the quality of life, economic development of Poland. Now each of the provinces will be able to build their own economic specializations" - said Gowin.

The topics are broad, ranging from bio-economy, energy, tourism through to creative sectors such as multimedia. "Lower Silesia region will probably focus on competencies related to production and processing of copper and silver. Our concept was based on listening to the needs voiced locally and designing tools that respond to those needs. So the RANB-s were born" - said Prof. Maciej Chorowski, director of the National Centre for Research and Development.

In the program, the amount of PLN 372 million was allocated to less developed regions and PLN 28 million to Mazowieckie. The value of the eligible costs for each project ranges from a minimum of 1 to max. 8 million zlotys.

RANB-s are one of the instruments of introducing regional smart specialization. They are a set of 26 complementary research areas that have been developed on the basis of reports from 16 province marshals. On this basis, scientific and industrial consortia composed of a maximum of 5 members whose leader is a research unit, will apply for funding of projects from the budget of PLN 400 million.

"Entrepreneurs can not act as applicants, the applicant is always a research unit. The research unit has to verify whether such activity falls under its statutory activity, assess whether at the stage of the result of the project, it will be able to conduct further research" - said Milena Piątkowska from the National Centre for Research and Development. She said that, for example, an entrepreneur may approach a scientific unit with an idea for a business that fall within one of the 26 research areas. By joining forces they prepare a project, which must include industrial research, R&D work. The entrepreneur assumes the obligation to implement the results of research.

Project applications may be submitted only in electronic form in the computer system until 29 July 2016.

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