Slovenia's new innovation system
Slovenia needs a new innovation system for sustainable development
Situation:
Slovenia is a country with strong intellectual potential and a tradition of innovation. With the closure or sell-off of large companies, the abolition of development departments after independence in 1991, reduced support for the scientific and educational spheres despite the 2011 Declaration, and a dysfunctional innovation process, knowledge-based innovative development has almost come to a standstill.
We have a relatively high national debt, too little investment per capita, too little value added, a low share of the high-tech sector in exports and not enough development capital in SMEs.
Without our own capital, our own banks and companies with home-grown products, we will have to go into debt, companies will go bust in crises because they have to pay back loans to foreign banks or will be sold off to foreigners at a low price, and interest payments to the budget will soar.
Without economic sovereignty, there will be no political sovereignty, no cultural sovereignty and no linguistic sovereignty.
Advantages compared to EU countries:
We are good at directly enriching human capabilities and creating the conditions for human development. In this segment of life we are 25th among 189 countries in the world on the HDI.
In the Legatum Performance Index, Slovenia is 18th out of 149 countries We have an economy that is improving its performance. It has risen from 49th place in the IMD ranking in 2015 to 37th place among 63 countries.
We have a large untapped intellectual and cultural potential.
Weaknesses compared to EU countries:
Slovenia is lame or poor at innovation in all areas of life and work. We are in the group of followers, but we should be in the group of improvers of existing products or developers of new innovative products.
Slovenia has fallen from the group of strong innovators to the group of moderate innovators in the European Innovation Semaphore. Estonia replaced us in the group of strong innovators. Portugal and the Czech Republic overtook us in the moderate innovators group. The drop is very significant - from 97% of the EU average to 88% and 81% respectively in 2011 and 2018. The biggest drops are in new PhDs, research funding and venture capital, and the translation of innovations into practice with patents. This is due to reduced national and EU funding in the areas of R&D, innovation, education, universities and young researchers.
There is insufficient flow of experts between universities, institutes and companies and abroad, which is why our competitiveness and innovation, in all areas, is lagging behind.
There is insufficient funding to develop our own innovative products. We have no risk fund and no equity capital for the independent development of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Three proposals to build on the strengths, remedy the situation and address the weaknesses:
Develop and successfully implement a pan-Slovenian innovation system based on six points: innovative people, high quality research and education for innovation, framework conditions and infra-structure, innovative companies and organisations, innovative public sector organisations, innovative regions and environment.
Support and improve the quality of key areas for the innovation system: universities, recruitment and circulation of professionals, R&D work within SMEs, innovation pyramid, innovation finance-risk capital, tax rules to stimulate innovation.
Encourage and financially support the development of SMEs and link them into medium/large clusters with their own development potential.
