Ownership and Structural Changes of Research and Development Establishments in Poland

Abstract

This article presents problems connected with ownership and organisational changes to research and development (R&D) establishments against the background of current R&D resources and the adopted goals of these changes. It indicates a gradual reduction in revenues from R&D, a fall in employment in this sphere, and a diminishing profitability thereof. The increasing crisis in the R&D sector is reflected in data in the period 1994-2000. The adaptation of R&D establishments to conditions of a market economy and the regulations of the European Union is regarded as a particularly important objective. The author examines all possible forms of ownership and legal-organisational changes in the R&D sector, weighing up the advantages and disadvantages of each solution. The preferred form of such changes, taking into account the specific nature of R&D, is direct privatisation effected by merging the R&D establishment with a company in which the State Treasury and the employees hold shares, or by handing over the R&D establishment for gratuitous use by a company in which the employees have shares, and the creation of multi-entity structures, including holding companies. The author points out that despite the introduction of favourable legislation over 18 months ago, no R&D unit has been commercialised or privatised yet, or granted the status of a state research establishment. The authors see the main barriers to this in a shortage of funds for restructuring in the state budget and in individual establishments, and an absence of some executive regulations. Presenting the possibility of emerging from this “stalemate” , the author suggests changes to legislation and recalls some of the actions proposed by the education minister in the reform to the system of financing education.