Can Europeanization Improve CEECs Research Systems?

The main results of reforms of R&D systems in central and eastern European countries (CEECs) after 1990 were increased autonomy and the introduction of competition principles in research funding. Since that time positive dynamics (such as gradual relocation of public R&D funding from Academy of Sciences and branch institutes to universities and strengthening both domestic and international research cooperation) and negative dynamics (such as increase of core statutory funding at the cost of project oriented funding) co-occurred. Apart from positive and negative dynamics, stagnation of the whole R&D system resulted when ‘preservation of S&T potential’ as the main idea of research policy was accompanied by survival strategies undertaken by researchers and research organizations “in an attempt to cope with shrinking public R&D budgets and the absence of effective demand for domestic R&D”. The interaction between preservation and restructuring together with a variety of survival strategies has produced a system that weakly contributes to and weakly benefits from economic growth and is different from both the communist R&D system and the R&D systems of advanced economies (Radosevic, 2004).

KOZLOWSKI Jan; 

2007-02-02

SPRU (Science & Technology Policy Research)

JRC36242

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC36242,