I took this image in Suzhou, a tiny town of 5 million close Beijing. We do not have specified laboratories in 38 million Poland.
Today I was at a conference on European R & D programmes. I learned that in fresh years Polish universities, institutes and companies have managed to get about 100 million Eur per year from specified programs. The problem is that our contribution to the Union for these R & D programmes is almost twice as big. So year after year, for research, we give nearly 100 million Eur to rich countries: Germany, France, Spain, and another Dutch. Does that make sense?
The question is, why are we at the very end of European funding?
Yeah, due to the fact that our labs are equipped worse than lousy. We bought any technology and analytical equipment 15 years ago, due to the fact that then we had backing from Europe. Unfortunately, after 15 years most of these devices match 15-year-old cars - you can inactive drive sometimes, but mostly you gotta repair.
Yeah, due to the fact that we do mostly "technological perception", which is what we do many years ago.
Yeah, due to the fact that we don't believe we can be a worthy partner for abroad consortia.
However, to make it "funnier", the money for these joint European investigation is embarrassingly small. So far it has been about 10 billion Eur per year. It's expected to grow, but that's it for now. For comparison, Volkswagen spends 20 billion Eur on R & D. No comment.
Michał Leszczyński
