Knowledge for sale

Spin-off – how to attain a double-fold commercialisation rate at your university and how to set up your own company – this will be the educational trade fair discussion topic for specialists from Finland and Poland.

Since 2008 and increased interest in spin-offs and spin- outs has been observed in Poland; this has been generated by the Operational Programmes’ support for innovativeness as it has been the financial source of innovative companies’ operation. The support programmes for “academic entrepreneurship” withins the framework of operational programmes have been realised by technology transfer centres, technological parks and incubators as well as a whole array of other institutions.

The activity of Poland’s spin-off companies leaves much to desire with regards to their creation and development – says Michał Klepka PhD, the Manager of Swietokrzyskie Innovativeness Portal – it has not been possible to cross the magic threshold of a mental and organisational “efficiency” which would allow for the research result commercialisation in such a business model. The attempts top-to-bottom influence demonstrated by legislative change do not guarantee an instant success. They will cultivate the phenomena we are good at, that is fulfilment of requirements we have been imposed with; this in turn leads to a fictitious, unreal business activity of this milieu.

We demonstrate scientific potentials – in Poland there are 470 higher education institutions which employ around 100 thousand lecturers – explains Andrzej Mochoń PhD; a university lecturer and targi Kielce President – What is then the obstacle for Polish scientists to market their knowledge? The EDUKACJA trade fair which has been held in Kielce for 17 times will become a discussion platform with the objective of finding the answer to this question. This quest will be facilitated with the know-how of one of Europe’s leaders in the business sector; the region of the highest European educational standards – for 3 days the representation of the Finnish Central Region will be running admission free workshops, trainings and conferences.

According to the data published by the European Commission in 2010 in the “Innovation Union” Poland demonstrates a poor innovativeness indicator when compared with other EU member states. Out of 27 countries Poland is ranked sixth at the bottom of the table. The market share of new products and services has been od decline since 2007 and it is the lowest among all the 27 EU member states. In Poland the income generated on innovative product sales in 2010 amounted only to 4,1%.