The participants of the congress, organized by the Employers of Poland, discusses issues including proposals for new legislative, financial and organizational solutions to facilitate contact between researchers and entrepreneurs.

One of the items on the congress agenda was the debate "Cooperation of business and science as a tool for modernization of Poland". During the debate, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education Prof. Włodzisław Duch reminded that recently a number of changes in the regulations had been introduced to facilitate this cooperation. This includes the amendment of the Law on Higher Education, which provides for the monitoring of graduates\' careers and changes the rules of research commercialisation.

"Things are changing - he commented - but I agree that we are not changing them fast enough. As we learn from +Alice in Wonderland+, we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. Compared to the rest of the world, we are not running fast enough" - he said.

On why science Poland is not developing as fast as could be expected, spoke the President of the Conference of Rectors of Academic Schools in Poland, Prof. Wiesław Banyś. "We are still forgetting that in 1990 we had 10 percent of young people who went to college, and now we have 51.5 percent. The entire academic community had to make a huge effort to achieve this civilization and educational burst. We know that we are behind in scientific research. It happened at the expense of something - at the expense of this burst" - he said.

CEO of the pharmaceutical company Roche Polska, Ewa Grenda said her company needs ideas from Polish scientists. They do not talk about their discoveries and research into new medicines that can be commercialised, and - in her opinion - the Poles have the potential.

President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Prof. Michał Kleiber said, in turn, that entrepreneurs "interfere too little in the activities of universities". He reminded that representatives of the business sector have the opportunity to sit in the conventions of universities and propose changes in the programs of study. He admitted that the entrepreneurs must inform about their expectations of science.

According to the President of Asseco Poland Adam Góral, both sides are to blame for the weak cooperation between science and business. "Entrepreneurs hold on to the stereotype that a university professor has no idea about the market, and university professor does not know how to communicate with the entrepreneur and listen to what he says. This has to stop " - he said.

He added that over the past 25 years both entrepreneurs and scientists made every effort to reach the place where they are now. In his opinion, now pay the price for having failed to establish a larger number of large companies in Poland. "In large companies, there are people who have time to think about the future. Our industry is dominated by small companies. And they are hectic, they are not able to think about the future" - he believes.

"There will be no innovation without the involvement of large Polish companies. (...) One in ten innovative projects is successful. And yet all of these ten projects have to be paid for. No one wants to take the risk of failure. Let us talk about how to take risks, how to reward failure, because failure is science" - urged Wojciech Kąkol, former CEO of Energa Innovation. The company was set up by an energy company to commercialise research. The project failed, however. According to Kąkol it was because state-owned companies are afraid to invest in risky ventures.

In reference to this problem, director of the National Centre for Research and Development, Prof. Krzysztof Jan Kurzydłowski said: "Our role is to provide public money (to companies - PAP) to minimize the risk at the stage where the risk is greatest. Then, unfortunately, the companies must take over the funding" - he explained.

PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland

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