Prof. Krzysztof Jan Kurzydłowski, undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Science and Higher Education, talks to Danuta Górecka.

In the 1990s, Poland spent some 1.1 percent of its gross domestic product on scientific research each year; today it is spending less than 0.6 percent. Don't you think that, with this level of funding, Poland will continue to trail behind other European countries in terms of research?

The overall condition of Polish research cannot be assessed without considering its recent determinants and the developments of the past 17 years. It is true that Poland spends much less money on research than it should be spending, and it is also true that, in a sense, we are dragging behind other EU countries in this respect. But these countries are global leaders. Moreover, Poland is a relatively large country in terms of various indicators, and as any large entity, it cannot move as fast as smaller countries, which have managed to solve their infrastructure and social problems in a much shorter period of time and can now spend much more money on research and development. In our country, this process is slow but we have already achieved some success.

In Poland's case, the GDP share of government spending on research is not the best measure of the condition of the science sector. Poland's GDP has been growing very fast, especially in recent years. For this reason, even if there is a steady increase in spending on research in absolute figures, it does not translate directly into a higher GDP share. The actual GDP share does not really matter for researchers; it is mainly of interest to statisticians. Researchers are chiefly concerned about whether or not their chances for acquiring research funding are growing. The answer is: yes, these funds are growing. Over the past two years, research expenditure has risen by 30 percent. This year, it will increase by zl.350 million. And there is also increasing demand for Polish research among businesses. Of course, this funding is still insufficient, but it is on the rise. And this offers a great opportunity provided this process continues. Additionally, more money is now being transferred for research and research infrastructure from European Union structural funds. This means that Polish research will soon be supported by two financial streams.

Even if the GDP index does not reflect the full picture, one needs to use some statistical criteria for comparisons. Sweden, for example spends up to 3.5 percent of its GDP on research and development.

In many cases, all these comparisons, percentage points and indices are quite superficial in nature and do not describe the real situation in Poland. It is true that spending on research in relation to GDP is very low in Poland, but the number of researchers is also small here compared with developed countries. We should also remember that Poland began taking part in EU research programs only recently, and we have to assess our potential in this respect realistically. Compared with other European countries, research costs in Poland are much lower; our laboratories are modestly equipped, and wages are also modest. The hourly rate of pay, which has a significant impact on the value of research projects, is low. For example, if the monthly labor cost is 1,000 euros in Poland, it is 5,000 euros in Western Europe. We are trying to gradually improve the situation. Even though our starting position is so difficult, we are carrying out many ambitious projects-which may be even more ambitious than those undertaken in countries that set aside much more money for research.

Does Poland have sufficient intellectual potential to take advantage of all these funds for research from both the national budget and the European Union?

I did not say we have enough money. I only said that spending is on the rise and that we have much better prospects than in previous years. In 2007-20013, Poland will be the largest beneficiary of structural funds, with 67 billion euros from the EU budget allocated to our country. But I think Poland's greatest advantage is that we have more than 2 million university and college students, and more than 30,000 Ph.D. students.

A large number of students does not automatically mean that there's a lot of genuine talent out there. In fact, in some EU countries, it is possible to hear opinions that the program of building a knowledge-based economy in Europe may not be fully successful without sufficient intellectual potential in research teams that work on specific projects. Aren't you afraid that all this money may be wasted?

Statistics are simple: creative people-meaning those who are intellectually capable of taking up various challenges and are in a position to work as team leaders-account for just 3 or so percent of all those who stand out in the general population in one way or another. Of course, in China, this 3 percent translates into a much larger number of people than in Poland. But the point is not whether the number of creative and exceptionally gifted people is 30,000 or 300,000. The point is to create appropriate conditions for them to be able to put their creativity to good use. In Poland, we are trying to create such conditions as far as we can. There is no doubt that we are a creative nation. It is enough to mention the successes of our youth in various international contests, in disciplines such as mathematics, chemistry and programming. One recent example is Tomek Kulczyński, this year's graduate of High School No. 6 in Bydgoszcz, who won first place and a gold medal at a major IT competition known as the International Olympiad in Informatics in Zagreb, Croatia. He scored 574 points out of a maximum 600, beating 284 contestants from 77 countries. All the other Poles taking part in the competition also won medals. Historically, it was the second top programmer title for a Pole at the International Olympiad in Informatics. In another recent Polish success, Maciej Wojtkowski, a 32-year-old academic with a doctoral degree at the Nicolaus Copernicus University's Institute of Physics in Toruń, won the prestigious European Young Investigator Award (EURYI). He competed with 112 other contestants from many countries. Wojtkowski won a top prize of 225,000 euros for designing a tomograph for retinal examination and for his outstanding contribution to the development of ophthalmologic examination methods. I could go on listing our scientific successes for a long time. We have many talented young people. The only thing that has to be done is to make their careers more attractive and easier. And many universities are trying to do so.

What is your ministry doing to promote cooperation between science and business?

Until recently many foreign companies with stakes in Polish plants used their own advanced technologies. They were attracted to Poland mainly because of its cheap labor, inexpensive raw materials and favorable location in Europe. Until just two years ago, companies operating in the Aviation Valley [cluster in southern Poland] exclusively relied on Western technology. Today new research centers are being set up in the area, and there is growing demand for Polish research among these companies. In the case of the aviation industry and most other high-tech sectors, it is a standard policy for businesses now to spend from 10 to 20 percent of their revenue on research and development. Meanwhile, in many other sectors, average spending worldwide does not exceed 1 percent, and nobody seems to complain. Simply, if research is not indispensable in a given industry, there is no point in pursuing research projects for their own sake.

While supporting the development of the Polish aviation industry and related research, we believe that a synergy effect will be created, with larger spending from the national budget resulting in much larger spending on research and development among businesses. The situation in the electronics sector is similar. Large manufacturers of modern electronic equipment, such for Jabil, Sharp and LG, have opened production facilities in Poland. We have already become Europe's largest producer of LCD (liquid crystal display) monitors, something that is bound to lead to the development of R&D in our country. Most major global companies operating in the rapidly expanding IT sector, such as Intel, Google and Motorola, have already set up their subsidiaries in Poland. These companies rely on staff educated at our universities, which leads to an efficient transfer of technology.

We are a sufficiently large country to pursue research and have world-class research teams in almost every field. At the same time, Polish science is looking for ways to exploit its potential for the needs of business. We are conducting various activities to forge closer ties between science and business and make it easier for these two sectors to work together.

What do these activities involve?

The Ministry of Science has introduced various forms of activity including "special-purpose projects," "commissioned projects" and "development projects," and it has also came up with the idea of research and industry consortiums. One special-purpose project, worth zl.65 million, has involved developing the technology for and launching the production of recombinant drugs and proteins necessary to produce these drugs. Another special-purpose project, which has claimed more than zl.7 million to date, has involved developing and implementing the technology for the manufacture of GA8 magnesium alloy castings for the Sokół helicopter.

As regards "development projects," these include applied research and development work oriented at practical application. In turn, "commissioned projects" have included the development of materials and technologies for hydrogen systems based on process gases used in industry.

Research and industry consortiums-this sounds like globalization on a grand scale...

According to its legal definition, a consortium is a group of entities that includes at least one research center and at least one company. The consortium undertakes joint activities, including research and development work as well as investment for the needs of research and development. Such consortiums are supposed to support innovation. There are three types of them: advanced technology centers, technology platforms, and clusters.

Advanced technology centers are research consortiums composed of research units conducting world-standard research and other organizations committed to research, development work and practical applications.
Technology platforms are business-led consortiums composed of leading enterprises, research units, innovation and enterprise centers, financial institutions and business self-regulation organizations. Their mission is to develop a medium- and long-term vision of technological development for a selected sector of the economy. Twenty-six technology platforms operate in Poland at the moment.

Clusters are local production systems. A cluster can be defined as a concentration of businesses, institutions and organizations interconnected through an extensive network of formal and informal relations oriented toward pursuing a common goal-for example a joint technology, a common target market, or a shared marketing strategy. Cluster members cooperate with one another, but they can also compete in selected areas. A cluster is a network of ties between producers, on the one hand, and suppliers, consumers and institutions from the research and technology sector, on the other. Knowledge-based clusters, typical of industries such as aviation, chemical and electronics, bring together companies that want to secure access to basic research as well as public research institutions and institutions of higher education.

The European Union's 7th Framework Programme for 2007-2013 highlights the role of research in the context of building a knowledge-based economy. Under the EU's Lisbon Strategy, each member country will have to spend 3 percent of its GDP on building a knowledge-based economy, using funds from both the national budget and business sources. Although the 7th Framework Programme essentially promotes research for the needs of business, it also encourages research projects that may only gain economic importance in the future. Is it in Poland's interest to pursue research that will not produce immediate economic results?

Indeed, for the first time, the 7th Framework Programme sets aside money for socioeconomic and humanistic research. There is also funding available for research into clean coal technology, a pursuit that coincides with Poland's national interest. Europe dislikes coal, regarding it as a dirty industry. Meanwhile, Poland's entire power sector is based on coal. Research aimed at increasing energy efficiency and introducing new technologies to convert coal into synthetic gaseous and liquid fuels is in our best interests. What's more, Europe is planning to impose a complete ban on carbon dioxide emissions after 2020. We have to develop technologies for storing carbon dioxide in what are called geological formations. Poland has already developed a pioneering technology for injecting and storing carbon dioxide in underground repositories. Polish Oil and Gas Company PGNiG SA has launched Europe's first carbon dioxide sequestration facility in Borzęcin, [Lower Silesia province,] in 1995. The experience of Borzęcin is very promising. PGNiG has unique data on carbon dioxide and sulfur hydrogen migration and the dissolution of gases in underground waters.

R&D centers, universities, independent research teams and many other applicants are interested in securing co-funding for their projects. Is the Ministry of Science and Higher Education eager to hand out grants, and what are the criteria for distributing them?

Happily, not all researchers seek public money. Some of them are able to acquire funding on their own, either from the business sector or from various foreign programs. We hope the number of such researchers will grow because this would be the best way to make research independent of government support. But, of course, the government is obligated to support research financially. Research is of fundamental importance to maintaining an adequate level of knowledge, using it for educational purposes and safeguarding the needs of all citizens. Poland may not have a nuclear reactor, but one can hardly imagine the country not having an expert in this field. And this applies to all other areas as well. We may not be manufacturing a specific product, but we must have specialists in this field. When it comes to spending funds from the national budget, collective wisdom is needed here, although the final decisions are made by individuals. Science is so extensive that one can hardly expect a single person or even a group of people to know all the answers to all the questions in a given area. A group working to prepare a decision has to be subject to changes in lineup and must be practically open-ended. Who actually makes the decision is less important than the rules governing the decision-making process.

The rules are simple and based on the autonomy of a given community. People with the greatest expertise become decision makers. Ranking lists according to which research funds are distributed are compiled on the basis of collective knowledge, confirmed by independent experts.

A separate stream of funding is intended for those who hold quality certificates. They come either with evidence that their ideas have been approved by the European Commission or with additional money provided by a private investor. In these cases, the ministry commits itself to part-fund the project.

A third method of co-financing is funding within the national program. The European Commission has its framework program, and we have our national program of scientific research and development work. As a result of an experts' debate, taking into account the expected outcome of a specific undertaking, we define key areas of research for Poland. One such research area involves energy-related projects, including emission-free energy generation methods and associated problems.

Some research teams have problems with the practical application of their projects. Even those researchers who have won gold medals at the annual World Exhibition of Innovation, Research and New Technology in Brussels have difficulty finding a manufacturer. Does the ministry help them establish such contacts?

Communication between research and business is a very important problem. A system in which the government decided who should produce what is a thing of the past in Poland. Today the manufacturer has to take the risk involved in a specific type of economic activity. Sometimes the risk is taken by the creator of the idea or the initiator of the technology or someone who is already involved in economic activity and wants to exploit the opportunity to put this technology to practical use. The government cannot take this risk, but it can reduce it by providing appropriate subsidies. This is the objective of the growing number of activities we are already pursuing. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education is carrying out its Technological Initiative/Polish Innovative Enterprise program aimed at developing new products and technologies based on Polish research and technological achievements. The program is addressed to entrepreneurs, particularly those running small and medium-sized businesses, as well as research teams directly connected with industrial activity.

Financial support is also available from the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), which carries out numerous assistance programs and provides funding for projects designed to support the development of small and medium businesses. Soon a range of new instruments will be launched to be financed from structural funds, including the Innovative Economy program.

As a researcher, you specialize in materials engineering, with a special focus on nanotechnology. How is this area of research developing in Poland?

I cannot say that nanotechnology is already strong in Poland, but we are one of the leading countries that have recognized the theoretical and practical importance of this field of science. Although it requires very complex equipment and extensive knowledge, nanotechnology may enable Poland to "take a shortcut" in the development of many sectors of the economy. Now that Poland has a chance to acquire funding for huge investment in infrastructure, it is worth spending the money on scientific disciplines such as nanotechnology.

The Warsaw University of Technology and the University of Warsaw have many achievements in this area to their credit. Both universities have established important cooperation arrangements in nanotechnology. This enables them to set up research groups whereby different departments-for example the faculty of chemistry and physics and the faculty of materials engineering-team up to pursue joint projects. There are also several Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) institutes that have major achievements to their name in this field, including the Institute of Physics and the Institute of High-Pressure Physics.

Other important nanotechnology centers in Poland are [the southwestern city of] Wrocław, with the strong position of the Wrocław University of Technology, and of course, Cracow, which, in some areas, is even ahead of Warsaw. The position of Cracow's Jagiellonian University in nanotechnology research is particularly strong.

Are these institutions working on projects that may be applied in practice in the future, or are they mainly preoccupied with basic research?

To put it very simply, nanotechnology can be applied in industry in two ways. The first method is the introduction of new revolutionary technology. A classic example are microrobots that will be floating in people's blood vessels to capture cholesterol. In 10 or 15 years, this will definitely be feasible. The second method involves modifying the structure of materials on the basis of nanotechnological knowledge and ideas. Throughout the world, we have to do with products that are manufactured with the use of nanotechnology. These include digital processors, cosmetics, to which special nanopowders are added to achieve specific results, paints, varnishes and so on. This second method involves changing and improving existing products. Compared to the first one, it is much less costly and can be applied much faster.

The results of nanotechnological research conducted in our centers are already being transferred to the marketplace. One example is WSK PZL Rzeszów, which produces turbine blades for aircraft engines. The blades are cast by pouring liquid metal into special molds with cooling ducts. The molds are produced with the use of nanotechnology through the addition of nanopowders to achieve the required effect.

Wrocław is interested in hosting a European Institute of Technology under a European Union program. How realistic is this prospect?

The idea is supported by the president of the European Commission. Poland is very interested in this project. Wrocław and the surrounding areas are a special region in Poland, with intensive investment in technology and strong ambitions to develop higher education. The Wrocław University of Technology, the University of Wrocław and the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences are among leading institutions of higher education in Poland. This investment and educational development explain why the city has expressed its interest in hosting the European Institute of Technology. But there is also another ambitious program that is already in progress and involves the establishment of a Lower Silesian Institute of Technology. This institute will pursue the idea of the European institute in the Wrocław region. Wrocław's universities have already established contact with universities in Dresden, Germany, and several other cities that are located relatively close to Wrocław. The final shape of the European Institute of Technology has not been determined yet but we already know what the Lower Silesian Institute of Technology will look like. It will offer Ph.D. courses and deal with research in fields such as nanotechnology, biotechnology and medical technologies. The initiator of the idea is Prof. Tadeusz Luty, rector of the Wrocław University of Technology.

Does Wrocław have any competitors in its bid to host the European Institute of Technology?

As far as the general idea of the institute is concerned, we have no competitors. The institute is expected to be composed of several knowledge and innovation communities made up by university teams, industrial companies and perhaps also supporting institutions. Up to a dozen or so such communities may be set up around Europe, each based on several centers, of which one would perform a coordinating role. We would like Wrocław to become the coordinator for one of such communities. A relatively small managing board would supervise the project. The Polish government has supported Wrocław in its efforts to make the managing board based in the city. And Wrocław's chances are quite strong. There are several places in Europe that would make a good headquarters for the managing board, but we believe Wrocław wins. The Czech Republic is being mentioned as one of the competitors. However, no selection criteria have been adopted yet. More candidates may appear when the formal application process begins. The European Institute of Technology is to be set up in around two years. For the time being, the European Commission wants to establish two pilot communities to check how the idea will work in practice. The selection process has not started yet, nor is it clear what kind of problems these two communities would be dealing with. Climate change could be one of them.

If the European Institute of Technology is set up in Wrocław, how much easier will it be for the government to promote Polish research and business internationally?

Promotional activities have to be professional and consistent. The problem is that in Poland promotion is sometimes considered to be an unnecessary expense rather than an investment in the future. Besides, we cannot conduct promotional activities using funds that are set aside for research projects. I think the best way to promote Polish science is to show it as it really is.