Úroveň výskumu a inovácií v súvislosti so vstupom Slovenskej republiky do Európskej únie
RESEARCH AND INNOVATION IN CONNECTION WITH THE ACCESSION OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC TO EUROPEAN UNION

Summary/Abstract: The Lisbon meeting of the European Council March 2000 recognized research and innovation potential of a country as the most effective factors of competitiveness of EU countries on the globalizing markets. This applies also for the candidate countries striv-ing for access to the EU. In assessing the level of mentioned factors it is necessary to state that Slovakia is in this respect lagging behind. Particularly this applies to reduc-tion of expenditure on scientific and research institutes. Expenditures on research and development (R & D) per 100 thousand inhabitants in the EU countries are roughly 6-times higher than in Slovakia. Their share in GDP in Slovakia is 0.68 per cent compared to 1.86 per cent in the EU. Though reduction of employees in R & D was necessary in comparison with the economic potential of Slovakia, however, till 2000 it reduced below the EU countries level. The number of R & D employees declined since 1989 till 2000 by 75.3 per cent and in the enterprise sector even by 87.5 per cent. Personal expenditures on thousand employees of R & D account in Slovakia hardly for 20 per cent of the EU level. This high difference in material incentive is the main reason of emigration of researchers to foreign countries. Low level of expenditure is also for the innovation activities in the enterprise sector. Two factors are decisive: The first one consists in preferring import of modern tech-nologies with the aim of decreasing the risk of developing them in domestic environ-ment. The second one consists in strong reduction of R & D potential because of lack of financial means. In the EU countries from the total expenditure on innovations 22 per cent are in-tended for investment and 53 per cent for domestic research. In Slovakia the relation is inverted: 33 per cent for investment and 13 per cent for domestic research. If this ap-proach does not result in a radical decline of research potential, it can be accepted. Oth-erwise there is a threat that a dangerous gap would generate in intellectual potential jeopardizing perspective development of sophisticated industries. The share of innovating enterprises in total number of enterprises in manufacturing industry is in the EU countries three times higher than in Slovakia. At he same time the largest differences arise in those categories of economic activities which from the per-spective development are most interesting (machine and equipment manufacture, elec-trical and optical equipment manufacture, transport means and chemical product manu-facture).

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