On 27 March Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Administration and Justice Tibor Navracsics addressed the 12th annual general meeting of the Hungarian Association for Innovation, (Magyar Innovációs Szövetség). He said that the Government must support innovation and pioneering inventions must be built into the system – otherwise inventors might take their economically important innovative talents abroad, where they can be better rewarded.

‘Over the past fifteen years every government has said that innovation is a very important area but, while steps have been taken in the political sphere, innovation has still taken a backseat,’ said the Deputy Prime Minister. In his opinion, the main problem for a political decision-maker is to decide whether an innovation could benefit the national economy – and is thus worthy of support – or whether it is a short term, market-oriented enterprise.

Mr. Navracsics said that Hungary is one of the most innovative countries, and that many Hungarians are engaged in useful innovation. The system is so fragmented, however, that a significant number of such innovations are unexploited or are further developed abroad, due to the low financial rewards in our country. In response to this problem, the Government has created the National Research, Innovation and Science Policy Council, which provides the opportunity for ministries and representatives from civil society interested in innovation to meet – thus enabling opinions from outside the Government to be incorporated into the decision-making process. This forum is ideally suited to increasing the Government’s receptiveness to innovation.

In Europe and throughout the world the most pressing question is to what extent these inventions and innovations can stimulate economic growth. Mr. Navracsics said that we should strive to keep the inventions and discoveries of talented people from benefiting the economies of other nations rather than their own.

Last week the Government announced that EU and Hungarian grants totalling HUF 74.6 billion will be available through calls for applications in the field of research, development and innovation. The programme is aimed at umbrella projects of larger companies and the market-oriented activities of medium-size enterprises.

(kormany.hu)