The Government will launch a national consultation process with regard to its long term innovation strategy until 2020 at the end of the month – Minister of State for Economic Strategy at the Ministry for National Economy Zoltán Cséfalvay announced on Thursday at a Swedish-Hungarian innovation forum in Budapest.

As the Minister of State explained, the strategy will focus on strengthening knowledge centers, promoting knowledge utilization by enterprises both big and small as well as facilitating knowledge transfer between the two.

He has also reminded the participants that strengthening competitiveness may serve as a long-term remedy for the crisis and within this issue research and development as well as innovation play pivotal roles. Sweden is the best example of this attitude, as the country has been among the top performers in any kind of innovation ranking, he added.

Speaking about the Hungarian projects of Swedish companies he said the following: although the total amount of these lags behind the investments of other countries, but Swedish projects are more research and development intensive. “It is in the best interest of both the Swedish and the Hungarian economy to attract such investments in the future”, he added.

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt also addressed the forum, stating that the key to successful innovation policy is a strong Europe and commitment to the rule of law and a free society. He added that Sweden has a 200-year history of freedom as opposed to the two decades Hungary had. But there is hope and confidence, he emphasized, because both countries are creative and innovative. He also highlighted that the Swedish Ericsson company is the largest company in Hungary dealing with R+D which provides opportunities for further cooperation between the two countries.

At the forum the Deputy Director General responsible for research-development-innovation issues at the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise, Energy&Communications Jon Simonsson was also among presenters who called attention to the importance of cooperation between the public sector, enterprises and scientific institutions regarding innovation.

He also highlighted the crucial role of the public sector which it may play not only in promoting innovation and development via tenders but also in defining objectives for the society.

As Deputy Chief Executive responsible for enterprise relations at Ericsson Hungary Roland Jakab emphasized, in the field of innovation Ericsson has assigned a key task for its Hungarian subsidiary: more than 1200 research engineers are employed at every stage of innovation in Hungary, such as education, basic research, applied research, industrial application and development. This result could not have been achieved without the excellent relationships with universities – he stated.

(Ministry for National Economy)