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Business Support:
Joanna Manikowska
tel: +48 (0) 22 334 98 94
joanna.manikowska@paiz.gov.pl
R&D activities have an important role in the growth of the economy, improving competitiveness and in the level of innovation. Analysis comparing Poland to the other EU nations, indicate a great scope for development of the sector in this country. The average expenditure on R&D in the EU is 1.95% of GDP, whereas in Poland it’s 0.59%. The percentage of innovative companies among the businesses that are active in the EU is 51%, whilst in Poland it’s 16.9%.
Why Poland? The Potential gains for investors connected to offshoring and outsourcing of R&D in Poland are:
- the low costs of running R&D activities in Poland,
- the availability of qualified staff,
- great development potential - large numbers of young well qualified personnel, with a knowledge of foreign languages,
- possibilities for cooperation between business and the scientific-educational world,
- an excellent location at the centre of Europe.
The positive experiences and great results of firms with their own R&D centres, has meant that most decide to expand their activities and the scale of their investments. Examples are: the German firm Siemens, which has increased employment at its Wroc³±w centre by 40% and Motorola that year on year increases employment at its software centre in Krakow (currently employing 800 specialists).
Poland was found at the top in the EU, in terms of the growth in numbers of young workers in the R&D sector between 2001 - 2006 (aged 25 - 34), and also of the share of the total number of people employed in R&D.
In this country there are 427 higher education institutions, of which 123 are state owned (18 of these are technical institutes employing over 25 thousand workers), and 304 are privately owned. As a whole, higher education employs 87,789 personnel, including 75,762 in public education and 12,027 in the private sector. In Poland there are also over 200 R&D centres (98,000 R&D workers), including: the Polish Academy of Sciences, independent and specialised R&D centres and support agencies.
Potential R&D is also developing due to other entities, among which there are over 600 businesses both in Poland and abroad. It’s estimated that foreign firms will invest app. 100 million USD in R&D centres. Today there operate app. 40 R&D centres, employing several thousand Polish scientists and specialists. Most work in the telecommunications, automotive, chemicals, aviation, food and IT sectors (e.g: General Electric, Samsung, IBM, Motorola, Delphi, Siemens, Oracle, Wabco, ABB, Plisa, IBM, Lufthansa, Maersk, Philips, Accenture, HP, Volvo, GalxoSmithKline, Aircraft Engines Aerospace, AVIO Group and UTC/Pratt & Whitney). These centres are mainly located in large urban areas with well developed academic institutions, developed infrastructures and provide attractive working conditions for potential employees.
Large amount of state aid
In Poland R&D activities are financed 57.7% from the national budget, 26% by business entities and 16.3% of finance is from other sources. The significant influence of foreign direct investments in the R&D sector must be stressed, particularly for the development of this field in the business environment.
Whilst R&D may develop in each of the economic spheres. In Poland due to the industrial traditions and well developed scientific environment, it is particularly attractive in sectors like:
Factors which significantly affect the location of R&D centres are:
- low research costs,
- highly qualified personnel,
- intellectual potential,
- higher education institutes,
- research institutes, enabling the formation of clusters and national and international cooperation,
- strategic location,
- investment incentives,
- quality of work of Polish employees,
- regional development and innovation strategy.
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