Katowice, Śląsk

Regional innovation policy in Silesia. Our recommendations

SEENDICO

Silesia is one of the most-developed and innovative regions of Poland. However, its position has weakened in recent years. It resulted, among others from relatively lower than in other voivodships investments or smaller growth rate of the number of patents. Acceleration of the development of the Silesian economy will largely depend on the shape of the future regional innovation policy.

Regional innovation policy

In December 2018, we completed the evaluation of the implementation of the Regional Innovation Strategy of the Śląskie Voivodeship for the years 2013-2020. The results of our analysis will shape the future regional innovation policy in Silesia after 2020. During the study, we assessed the degree of implementation:

  • of 5 intelligent specializations of the region,
  • 11 milestones of the innovation ecosystem,
  • 10 RIS targets identified over 2 development priorities,
  • 5 strategic public intervention areas,
  • and 7 metadevelopments of the Regional Innovation Strategy of the region.

Recommendations

The analysis of the collected research material leads to the following key recommendations listed below.

  • To strengthen the endogenic innovation potential in the region by supporting chiefly regional and domestic firms.
  • To build an innovation potential and to keep and attract talents that are crucial for the construction of the innovation potential of the region, supporting developing industries needs to relate to the increasing quality of life in cities and to have an even greater focus on air quality, services, health services – determinants shaping the perception of life quality.
  • To increase in the knowledge of the participants of the innovation ecosystem in the Śląskie voivodship on the topic of research infrastructure in the region and services offered by research units by mapping the research-development infrastructure and related services.
  • Developing a research infrastructure sharing management model, which would focus on the management of research infrastructures, cooperation in the area of sharing of the university research infrastructure with other actors (e.g. firms, non-profit). This should be firmly set in the reality designed by country-level regulation related to sharing of such infrastructure.
  • Low intensity of cooperation between business, administration and academic partners with an increasing in parallel level of trust in the cooperation networks should be stimulated through promotion of cooperation and animation of network processes in the realm of the regional innovation system.
  • In the post 2020 perspective, the scale and the range of networking favoring commercialization of the R&D results will needed to be intensified. The regional innovation system should, in the near financial perspective, promote innovation partnerships, including in the innovation process of potential recipients of R&D results. It is highly recommended to further enhance this type of actions in the form of pilot tasks and programs as well as other initiatives that stimulate cooperation between academia and business from the very early phases of the innovation process.
  • The creation of the Regional Development of the Śląskie Voivodeship Fund in the 2020+ perspective.
  • Special support should be given to the internationalization of firm activity, leading to the initiation or development of sale of products and services on international markets. In this context, support should be focused on developing innovative processes and products in firms, which will allow them to join the global value chain.