Polish Market No. 3-4 (187) 2012

Polish Market :: 3-4/2012

PUBLISHED since 1996 No. 3-4 (187) 2012 :: www.polishmarket.com.pl

Inside:

Science Higher Education Innovation Commerce with China

Building for the future Polish Market talks with Prof. Marek Krawczyk, Rector of the Medical University of Warsaw and the Head of the Chair and Department of General, Transplant and Liver Surgery

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Contents

3 – 4/2012

From The President’s Press Office # 6

From The Government Information Centre # 7

The Polish pharmaceutical industry believes the sector harbors a great export potential # 26

innovation Our Guest

Prof. Michał Klejber talks about the challenges Polish science faces when it comes to building an innovative economy # 8

The Polish R&D sector is in the middle of a structural overhaul # 22

Prof. Alojzy Szymański talks about the achievements of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences # 25 Prof. Henryk Skarżyński talks about his achievements in creating a common system for monitoring populations’ health # 28

Prof. Barbara Kudrycka talks about how the academia evolves to meet the requirements of the contemporary labor market # 10

Prof. Elżbieta Mączyńska talks about the reform of the education system # 12

Edward Nowak: President of Bumar defense holding talks about the company’s engagement in innovative technology development # 34

Prof. Leszek Rafalski talks about about the role of the Supreme Council of Research Institutes in helping business and academia cooperate # 36

Cover interview

Prof. Marek Krawczyk talks about his plans and projects regarding Medial University of Warsaw # 14

The role of the Polish Academy of Sciences reexamined # 38

The Kraków-based Oil and Gas Institute spawns innovations in Poland and abroad # 40

science

Polish universities began to feature in global ratings # 18

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Contents

The IT support for the nuclear energy industry and science at the National Center for Nuclear Research # 42

Tadeusz Ferenc: Mayor of Rzeszow talks about how his city adjusts to embrace innovate economy # 44

Asseco to make life easier in Silesia # 46

Polish IT and ICT entrepreneurs have to learn how to sell their innovative products abroad # 48

Nickel Technology Park Poznań—your partner in development # 58

All eyes on Expochem # 62

law

Pharmaceutical patents serve innovations # 68

Renewable energy: a conundrum # 69

The pitfalls of promoting liquor # 70

Cultural Monitor

From Penderecki to the Polish visual artists # 72

The Bible Parables # 74

economic Monitor

Polish economy is still robust but some worrying signals appear on the horizon # 52

News roundup from the investors havens # 54

Elżbieta Penderecka talks abbot the Ludvig van Beethoven Easter Festival # 75

The house of the rising prominence # 78

events

19th Economic Forum in Toruń # 80

Polish Economic Congress in Warsaw # 82

Personalities of the Year # 84

banking

150 years of cooperative banking in Poland # 66 Correction: In our February 2012 issue, in the article Focus on the Polish energy market (page 64) we mistakenly reported the annual capacity of the Świnoujście LNG terminal. The correct number is 5 billion cubic meters. Our apology goes to our readers and the author of the article Krzysztof Kwiecień from the energy law department of Chałas & Partners law firm.

Polish Market :: 3-4/2012

PUBLISHED SIncE 1996

Publisher: Oficyna Wydawnicza RYNEK POLSKI Sp. z o.o.

(RYNEK POLSKI Publishers Co. Ltd.)

Contributors: Magdalena Szwed, Bogdan Sadecki, Janusz Turakiewicz

President: Krystyna Woźniak-Trzosek

Columnists: Małgorzata Zaleska, Maja Sujkowska, Chałas & Partners

No. 3-4 (187) 2012 :: www.polishmarket.com.pl

Vice-Presidents: Błażej Grabowski, Grażyna Jaskuła InSIDe:

Science Higher education Innovation Commerce with China

Building for the future Polish Market talks with Prof. Marek Krawczyk, Rector of the Medical University of Warsaw and the Head of the Chair and Department of General, Transplant and Liver Surgery

4 :: polish market :: 3-4/2012

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Editorial

The world is changing. The economic and financial crisis has broken the common belief that modern economies are poised to grow. In 2010 four European economies were on the list of the top ten largest world economies: Germany was between India and Russia, the UK between Brasil and France, and France was followed by Italy. However, according to the pamphlet published by the British government in 2011 Let’s choose growth. Why we need reform to unlock Europe’s potential, by 2020 only three European countries will still be on the list (Germany, the UK, and France) while by 2050 France will be no more among the top 10 largest world economies.

Poland, which has been growing at the rate of above 4% GDP a year for the last 20 years, is not going to be on the list and there are good reasons why. In 1992 Poland’s GDP measured along the purchasing power criteria per capita was USD 6,100, which was 29% of the average for Western Europe. In 20 years it grew 3.5 times to reach 49% GDP per capita of Sweden, 53% of Germany and 65% of Spain.

Given the growth continues uninterrupted, Poland’s GDP per capita will be level with that of Italy in 2026, in 2033 with that of Spain, in 2040 with that of France and in 2046 Germany.

The Polish economic success has its roots in the work done in the last 20 years of the economic, political and social transformation. The first phase was going from a centrally-planned economy to a free market economy. The second phase was the goal of becoming a part of the European Union achieved in 2004. Today, Poland has entered the third phase of its economic march to level its per capita GDP with that of the most advanced European economies.

To achieve that the government has implemented a EU strategy for a long-term growth entitled Poland 2030. Third wave of modernization. With this document Poland has joined a club of European countries who have a strategic plan for growth which is in sync with the EU growth strategy Europe 2020. It utilizes nine growth strategies in such sectors as innovations, transport development, energy security, natural environment, regional development, national security, human capital development, efficient administration and sustainable development of farming and agriculture.

One of the strong points of our economic thinking is that we can draw conclusions from our past experience. Poland is a country who has seen the centrally planned economy at work. We did experience the euphoria of the centrally planned economy and “scientificallyproven” plans of economic development that somehow did not work.

Poland also experienced its own “Greek syndrome” some 30 years ago. For years living on credit from the West and doctoring the statistics that otherwise would have shown the truth we ended up with a mounting debt and a ruined economy.

This, however, worked for Poland in the end. Thanks to this traumatic experience Poland developed fiscal safety standards and assigned such an importance to them that they eventually become a part of the country’s Constitution. It is with bewilderment that we see similar measures being now “discovered” by other countries.

The Europe’s fiscal pact is in fact something that Poland has had for 15 years now. And it has worked! ::

In his biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Issacson describes the creator of Apple as being motivated in his business endeavors by passion to build a lasting company. According to Issacson, when he was 12 years old, and an intern at Hewlett-Packard, Jobs discovered that “a properly run company could spawn innovation far more than any single creative individual.” Issacson quotes Jobs on that occasion as saying that his H-P experience helped him realize “that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company.”

Jobs believed in “deep collaboration” and that well-integrated products come out as a result of a well-integrated collaboration between people on every level involved in their creation.

This notion was put in practice everywhere at Apple and beyond. When he designed a new headquarters for Pixar studios he co-owned, Jobs insisted that bathrooms be located in one central point of the building so people from different departments would walk through the complex thus having more chances of meeting other co-workers and interface with them. After the Pixar team had relocated to the new building somebody said he was meeting a guy from a different department every day now—in the old Pixar compound they would not meet for weeks. The exchanges of ideas they had while meeting in the new building were important for both of them to get some creative stimulus about the way they were approaching the projects they, each separately, were working on.

According to many ratings of innovativeness in the economy Polish companies are not innovation champions. Perhaps a part of the problem is that truly big companies in Poland are few and far apart. Perhaps too, their staffs are not positioned in the best way which spawns creative contacts. But interior spatial design is not going to solve all shortcomings.

It is true that communication skills are not the strongest side of the Polish personnel, as many foreign investors testify. Because of the schooling system, which emphasizes individual competitiveness and achievement over group cooperation, Poles are not team players either. Another impediment to innovate in Poland that comes to me head offhand is the often voiced characteristic of the Polish worker—the relatively huge distrust of others. For historical reasons, researchers explain, Poles approach one another with a positive notion that the people they deal with in business and the workplace have some sinister hidden agenda.

In this issue of Polish Market we extensively cover innovation in science, academia and business. While, thanks to the EU funds and government reforms, a lot of money is pouring in today to fuel the development of innovative economy in Poland, the quantitative approach to the problem, which in fact prevails in this issue, is not all that should be taken into account. :: Tomasz Ćwiok Editor-in-Chief

Krystyna Woźniak-Trzosek President Rynek Polski Publishers Co. Ltd.

3-4 /2012 :: polish market :: 5

Picture Wojciech Grzedzinski

National security

President Bronisław Komorowski (left) meets his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai

Poland and Afghanistan Karzai said that Afghanistan and Poland have enjoyed good relations. He said he hoped they will maintain on a good level after Poland’s w ­ ithdrawal from Afghanistan in 2014.

President Komorowski also met with the Polish troops in Afghanistan. ::

Meeting of the Weimar Triangle

The Weimar cooperation National security secretaries of Poland, France and Germany met in Poland for a meeting of the Polish National Security Council to discuss security issues within the Weimar Triangle.

During the meeting President Bronisław Komorowski said that security cooperation between the three countries is important for the entire security of the European

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Union. “Our will to deepen and broaden our security cooperation is obvious,” President Komorow­ ski said. “It is because of Poland’s geographic location and Poland’s ­engagement in European integration.”

All participants agreed that the Strategy of the European Security should be revived so it addresses the present-day challenges. ::

President Bronisław Komorowski met his Lithuanian counterpart Dalia Grybauskaite to talk about the situation of the Polish minority in Lithuania, which is a major factor influencing the bilateral relations between the countries. President Komorow­ski said that the problems that the Polish minority has in Lithuania are not easy issues, but the two countries should work together to solve them.

During his visit in Lithuania President Komorowski took part in the celebration of Lithuanian Independence Day. He said that all Lithuanian President Bronisłow Komorowski (left) citizens, Lithuanians and and Lithuan Poles, should feel secure President Dalia and well in the country Grybauskaite they share. ::

Local democracy—engine of growth President Komorowski hosted a discussion panel of social scientists and local government activists which was a part of Public Debate Forum, a presidential initiative aimed at propagating the institutions of civic-society. President Komorowski said that it is thanks to the efficiency of local administration that Poland has managed to tap into many different EU funds for development.

He said that local government is a catalyst for further development of the country. He also underlined that the development of democratic institutions on the local level is tightly connected with the development of local business and the economy. ::

Picture Wojciech Grzedzinski

President Komorowski in Lithuania

Picture Piotr Molecki

Prosident Bronisław Komorowski met with Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, to exchange views on the situation in Afghanistan and the state of bilateral relations. President Komorowski said that the Afghan problems should be solved with political and economic means. In turn, President

President Komorowski called for a revision of the country’s security strategies at a meeting of the Plenary Conference of the Committee for Strategic Review of National Security.

He said that the economic crisis in the eurozone, as well as cyberspace concerns call for such a revision. President Komorowski said that security concerns will be great during the Euro 2012 soccer tournament to be held in Poland and Ukraine in June. Government ministries charged with the responsibility for safeguarding security for the public during the event are the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Administration and Digitization.

President Komorowski also said that the issue of security in cyberspace is critical for Poland’s national security in light of the recent hackers’ attack on government websites. President Komorowski said that while it is not about the government sites’ availability online but about the government’s ability to counter-react to foul play in cyberspace.

The Bureau of National Security is in charge of security issues in cyberspace. ::

Second thoughts over ACTA

Leveling gender inequalities Prime Minister Donald Tusk met with the representatives of the Women’s Congress, a women empowerment organization, to discuss the implications of the government’s reforms of the social security system. On the agenda was the proposition to up the retirement age of women to 67 years. The representatives of the congress said they were afraid

women will be pushed out of the labor market after the retirement age is shifted. They also signaled the need to address wage differences between men and women working in comparable posts. Last but not least, they said a 50% parity should be guaranteed for ­women candidates in parliamentary ­elections. ::

The menace of pension system Prime Minister Donald Tusk took part in a debate about government reforms of the pension system in the parliament. Meeting with representatives of trade unions PM Tusk said he was glad that many representatives of different trade unions were interested in taking part in such an important debate.

PM Tusk also said that while the government is interested in learning every opinion expressed by trade unions it will not surrender to the demands of a specific trade group but will focus on working out a consensual proposition so there will be no winners and losers when the reform is through. ::

Poland signs fiscal stabilization pact Prime Minister Donald Tusk took part in the European Council summit in Brussels designed for the EU members to sign the fiscal stability pact for the eurozone. Tusk said that by entering into the pact, Poland, which is not

a member of the eurozone, expresses strong commitment to follow stringent economic and fiscal policies. “Our economy is strong and we are confident we will live up to the pact’s obligation,” PM Tusk said. ::

Prime Minister Donald Tusk ran a review of the 100 days of the government on the job. Tusk said that the first 100 days were difficult for the governing coalition of the Civic Platform (PO) and the Polish Farmers’ Alliance (PSL), especially when it comes to international policies. Among major mistakes Tusk named was the way the government handled the ACTA issue: first being determined about signing the international agreement, then, after Poland did sign it, withdrawing from it to slam the agreement for not fitting the present-day reality. “We were slow but we did not lack the courage to admit we were wrong and change our mind,” PM Tusk said. ::

Heading for equal treatment The government is working on a program for the equal treatment of both sexes. On the agenda are such issues as equal salaries and a gender balance at collective bodies charged with decision making.

Agnieszka Kozłowska-Rajewicz, the government deputy for the gender equality, wants to make it mandatory for companies to file reports on wages of their workers vis-a-vis their gender.

According to government data, in 2010 female workers made 15% less (approximately PLN 700 gross) than male workers employed in comparable positions in the company sector. When it comes to the public sector women take home 80% of what men do on average. ::

European Council’s session...

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Photos courtesy of www.kprm.gov.pl

Donald Tusk during the metting with the representatives of the Women’s Congress

Our Guest

Long road to Eden Polish Market talks with Prof. Michał Kleiber, President of the Polish Academy of Sciences, about the challenges the Polish science faces when it comes to building an innovative economy.

In all major rankings of innovation in the economy Poland has scored rather low among other EU countries. But the intellectual elites do realize how critical innovative thinking is in today’s competitive world. Over the years, have you noticed progress in the way political leaders and other actors of the public scene perceive innovation?

There has been some progress. One of its signals is that for politicians it would have been politically incorrect not to talk about innovation in an appreciative way today. It means that psychologically our society has embraced the reality of the globalized world—that without being innovative we cannot progress to become economically competitive with other countries and regions of the world. In practice it means, for instance, that a significant part of the EU structural funding that Poland has been utilizing is now earmarked for projects that have some innovative potential. This is a major breakthrough as compared to what we had in the past when nearly all the EU money was earmarked, without a strategic outlook, for fixing current problems.

How is this new way of thinking about innovation reflected at universities?

There is a focus on learning how to function in today’s innovative world. There is a focus on intellectual property protection and how the related laws work. So there is a lot of focus on innovation-driven leadership in the academic circles.

One of the problems, perhaps, is that there are not too many patents registered in Poland. What is the problem behind this?

There are a few factors that contribute to this. First, the understanding of how patenting works and how it protects your product is not yet widespread. Intellectual property protection meant nothing in the past in Poland and still today this culture is somehow present in scientific circles. However, this is changing slowly as new generations of scientists have their ways.

But there is yet another issue. If you have an excellent invention you still do not know if the commercial application of your invention

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is going to work commercially or not. So oftentimes scientists grow skeptical about the commercial future of their inventions and they eye other options to make them work for them. Instead of patenting their inventions— patenting requires that you do not publicize anything about your inventions—they actually do spread the knowledge about their inventions in the academic circles and beyond. It boosts their egos and offers them an alternative to the commercial scenario: indeed they travel around the world to lecture about their inventions and their scientific status gets a significant lift. But this is not leading them any­where near being commercially successful.

Apart from theoretical understanding of the problem, a practical approach to proinnovation processes is important.

There are many initiatives undertaken by the administration in this respect. For instance, the Ministry of Sciences and Higher Education embarked on a program in cooperation with selected universities in the US. Recently a group of 40 Polish students visited Stanford to see how the university handles innovation-boosting processes in R&D and how the results are implemented into the commercial domain. They came back full of know­-how about how innovation processes work in Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley is not only about people with innovative ideas but also about R&D bud­ gets. What is the situation in Poland when it comes to financing R&D? In Poland the main source of R&D funding is the National Center for Research and Development. But there are other ways of attracting funding—in particular, a significant part of the EU cohesion budget can be used for this purpose. Also, scientists in Poland can go abroad to apply for the money if their research is promising. On the other hand, businesses which look to contract R&D centers can do so in Poland and in other EU countries. Fortunately, we have reached the stage at which each side—science and business—is free to choose who they work with and the programs they are parts of.

So the fact that Poland now is open to the EU is an important part of fueling the growth of innovative thinking and approaching business issues...

Polish entrepreneurs take an active part in European Technology Platforms, for instance.

It is a European initiative aimed at conducting R&D with supervision from commercial innovative companies. There are many Polish mutations of ETPs across the country. Different platforms embrace different industries such as defense, electronics, construction and others. Such platforms offer more potential for innovative results and they have higher chances of getting the kind of financing they need. It is important because they work to create new things, new innovations, new quality...

So far innovation in Poland has been mainly perceived as a virtue of recreating things, copying some solutions already tried and implemented...You can implement in your company something you have seen before some place else, which is good for your company, but, after all, it is not a creative innovation.

So while it does propel the economy of your company, the innovation will not work for you on the global scale because it is already there. Today we know that adopting innovative products and services is not enough to be competitive outside of Poland. Recreating already existing innovations is not enough to make our economy competitive in the global marketplace. The realization of this fact slowly sets in… However, as a country we cannot boast about any statistically significant successes in this area as yet.

So where is the problem? Is it because scientific progress here in Poland is not adequate?

Not exactly. Polish scientists are top grade.

Some 15 years ago a group of researchers in Poland developed the blue laser technology.

However, when it transpired that in order to implement the technology for commercial use millions of dollars were needed, this type of money could not have been found in Poland for what was a risky project. And today the blue ray technology is an industry standard.

It has been commercially implemented by

Our Guest

electronic companies in the US and Japan, not in Poland. So this shows the weak points of the Polish venture capitalism. There may be enough money to support R&D in Poland but there is not enough money willing to take the risk for companies to make commercial applications for their inventions. This is the death valley syndrome: it is difficult for companies in Poland to bridge the gap in financing between the R&D phase and the commercial development phase.

However, those problems are successfully dealt with in the US for instance... What is the difference then?

Banks in the US know how to handle the risk associated with innovative products. They know how to evaluate commercially the invention in question and what they can lose.

They look at similar cases that they handled in the past. There are yet no such mechanisms in Poland, unfortunately.

How about the emerging venture capitalism in Poland. Does it boost innovation?

As a whole, venture capitalists in Poland have too big an aversion to risk and practically are not willing to invest in a project unless they know close to 100% that it is going to be a success. When it comes to innovative products—products that are truly new, unprecedented and such that may change the way people do things—there is no way for you to find out whether the products are going to be successful in the marketplace until you try.

Do you see a surrogate of a VC fund for the commercial implementation of innovative ideas in Poland?

The National Center for Research and Development is going to play that role. It is about the scale-effect. If you support a pool of projects and only 10% of them are successful, you still are a winner in revenue terms even though you are not going to see any profits on the 90% of projects you invested your money into. So this is how you leverage risk. The center is a great institution, has an excellent leadership and I’m very optimistic about their role in helping Poland’s innovation grow.

So it seems that the commercial acumen is not yet developed to the point at which it can successfully partner with aspiring innovators...

Indeed, it is a big issue. Interfacing between scientists, technology people and entrepreneurs, and commercially-minded individuals is a must. A few years ago I talked with the Warsaw authorities to establish a techno park in Warsaw where on a vast

area commercial tech companies and R&D labs would be put together. The idea almost let to a consortium but eventually the city changed its mind arguing that the land should rather be zoned for residential development. But such parks exist in Poznań, Kraków, Wrocław and even much smaller cities such as Elbląg.

Warsaw is way behind them in this respect.

Where do you see problems?

It is important that companies think about how to create and stimulate demand for their products. Innovations are not only supplydriven. You cannot expect that people will rush to buy your product because it is different, new. You have to know how to market your product, how to make consumers think they need to have it. This is about synergy of the supply and demand. For a computer to be a successful consumer product you had to talk about it, about its power to enable your creativity and your personal freedom. To introduce a tablet into the marketplace you had to talk about how great it will bridge with your smartphone and your laptop. We have not yet mastered that marketing art yet.

Marketing is important but you have to refer to certain cultural values to make consumers buy your product. They need to identify themselves with the product somehow. We are talking about specific

Michał Kleiber is Full Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Academy’s President in the years 2007-2010, re-elected for the term 20112014. Between 1995 and 2002, Professor Kleiber was director of the Institute of Fundamental Technological Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where since 1986 he was chairman of the Department of Computational Science and Engineering. In the years 1997-2001 he chaired the Board for Directors of the Academy’s research institutes. In 1998-2001 Michał Kleiber represented Poland in the EU Joint Research Centre as a member of the Board of Governors and in the “Sustainable Growth” Steering Committee in the 5 th Framework Programme. Between 2001—2005, he headed the Ministry of Science and Information Technology in the Polish government. From 2002 to 2005, Prof. Kleiber was also chairman of the Governmental Committee for Offset Contracts.

In 2005, he was elected member of the European Research Council (Brussels) and chairman of the European Materials Forum (Strasbourg). In the years 2008–2010 he was member of the Governing Council Steering Committee of the European Science Foundation in Strasbourg. He also served as the pro bono education, science and technology

personal values. In this respect the Polish culture is different than the Western culture, more homogenous...

It is true but certain things do change in Poland. When you look at what happened after Poland had announced it would sign the AntiCounterfeiting Trade Agreement... Of course some of the protests were over the edge but there were some very good initiatives. There is counterculture in Poland. Young people do perceive the world through different values, such as ecology or democratic and civil freedoms, for instance. This should be an important observation for companies as well as public institutions and the government itself.

How do you evaluate the Polish schooling system vis-a-vis innovative thinking?

Fundamentally, school should stimulate the development of three personal character traits: that you like to learn, that you are not afraid to think out of the box, and that you are a team player. Our schools still do not notice the importance of those three aspects for the modern men. As a result our students do not like to learn, do not know how to develop an original line of thinking, and do not attach too much importance to collective work and peer-group interaction. Those are the vices that impact our professional future and who we are as a society which is a part of the ­global economy and the community of nations. ::

advisor to the President of the Republic of Poland (2006—2010). Prof. Kleiber pursues research in theoretical and applied mechanics as well as information science and applied maths. The main subject of his research are applications of state-of-the-art computational techniques in different areas of scientific research, technology and medicine—particularly for modeling, analyzing, simulating and visualizing of complex non-linear thermo- mechanics phenomena. Prof. Kleiber has been awarded the title of doctor honoris causa by the universities in Lublin, Kraków, Warsaw, Darmstadt (Germany), Mons (Belgium) and The Polish University Abroad, London, U.K. He also holds the ingenieur honoris causa title from the Ecole National d’Ingenieurs in Metz (France). He is a foreign member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in Salzburg and member of the Academia Europaea in London.

He is a full member of the Warsaw Learned Society. Prof. Kleiber lectured and did research during long-term stays at a number of renowned universities world-wide: in Stuttgart, Hannover, Darmstadt and Bochum in Germany; Berkeley, CA and Stoors, CN, USA; Tokyo, Japan and Hong Kong, among others. ::

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Our Guest

Faster, better, focused...

Polish Market talks with Prof. Barbara Kudrycka, Minister of Science and Higher Education, about how the academia evolves to meet the requirements of the contemporary labor market.

win grants in a competitive way whereby the projects that get financing are important for the economy.

The grants are distributed by two independent agencies: the National Center for Research and Development (NCBiR), and the National Science Center (NCN). These two agencies are free to provide financing for the best projects submitted to them. For instance, the NCBiR will allocate PLN 2.5 billion this year. In turn, the NCN has allocated over PLN 500 million to 1,871 projects last year. The agency’s budget for this year is PLN 900 million.

But the goal is not only to ferret out the best R&D projects for financing but also allocate money to the best educational institutions. The leading academic centers which will be granted the status of KNOW, which is Polish acronym for National Leading Science Centers, will all get PLN 10 million a year for the next five years.

The government has motioned major reforms of the higher education so Polish universities produce graduates whose knowledge and skills match the expectations of the private sector. How is the reform being implemented?

The main goal of the reform, which became law in October 2011, is to improve the quality of education and realign the curricula so they match the demands of the labor market. Universities will reform their curricula so students acquire not only theoretical knowledge but skills that are necessary at the labor market. So far 97% of state-owned higher education institutions and 92% of privately-owned are in the process or curricula realignment so they provide more room for teamwork, workshops and practical training. Our aim is to focus on training communication and collaboration

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skills because they matter in the contemporary workplace.

I want to underline that the reform introduced some regulations such as the requirement for the schools to offer contracts to their students when it comes to the tuition fees. So far some 97% of private schools and 99% of public schools have implemented this regulation.

How do you evaluate the science development budget that is a part of the reform?

State expenditures into science have indeed grown significantly from PLN 3.8 billion in 2007 to PLN 7.6 billion this year. When it comes to the higher education, the 2012 budget is over PLN 12.6 billion.

The reform of the financing of science development aims to grow the system of grants, so more scientists

The best Polish educational and scientific hubs slowly make it to the international ratings. For instance the 2011 edition of Webometrics includes five centers in Poland while in 2010 had only two. What do you think can be done to boost the international recognition of Polish academic centers?

Webometrics focuses mainly on the interactive leg of the communication between the students and the institution. Indeed, five Polish institutions were listed in 2011 in the rating of top 500 universities: Jagiellonian University, AGH University of Science and Technology, Warsaw University, Warsaw University of Technology and Adam Mickiewicz University. University of Silesia in Katowice nearly made it to the top 500. It all shows that Polish institutions of higher education are increasingly embracing international links. This policy is heavily supported by the ministry not only through the laws that the ministry executes—one of

Our Guest them dismantles the barriers for employing foreign scientists in Poland— but also through the ministry’s own initiatives and programs. For instance the PLUS Program targets young scientists who are in need of funding to finish their research. So far PLN 74 million was distributed in the PLUS subprogram called Iuventus Plus. Another subprogram, Mobility Plus, with the budget of PLN 16 million, helps Polish scientists take part in research projects in renowned centers abroad.

What is the policy of the ministry when it comes to the promotion of Polish academic centers abroad to attract foreign students?

One of our 2012 priorities is to launch a global, effective advertising campaign of the offer of the Polish higher education. Our goal is to help our schools compete with renowned international centers in their quest for new students. Our promo stands at international education fairs in Kiev, Bangkok, Huston and Dublin will include the presentation of educational offers from selected Polish institutions

of higher education. We also plan to get new students for Polish universities through international academic cooperation. In December Poland signed an agreement with China regarding the development of cooperation in scientific research and student and PhD student exchange.

One of the key issues for the development of innovative economy in Poland is to boost the process of implementing innovation into commercial applications. In light of the new reform, nearly the entire financing of R&D in Poland is now the domain of the NCBiR and the NCN. What is the role of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education when it comes to distributing funds?

It is true that the role of the ministry has been altered. It does not mean, however, that the responsibility that the ministry carries is lighter. Quite the contrary. Presently the ministry focuses heavily on the development of science, commercial applications, and the promotion of interesting solutions

which will in turn help propagate the knowledge about the Polish science worldwide. The ministry has undertaken quite a few projects in this respect.

One of them is called Top 500 Innovators which aims at bridging the gap between the academia and the business circles. Thanks to the program in the next four years 500 Polish scientists will work at renowed scientific centers abroad, including Harvard, Stanford, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The first group of scientists who have already finished their several-month-long tenures have a new way of thinking about innovations— they think more like business managers now. So talking about the commercial potential of their innovations they will be now on the same page with business people. Eventually, both sides of the innovation-enabling equation will be effectively contributing to the development of the Polish ­economy. ::

The reform of the financing of science development aims to grow the system of grants, so more scientists win grants in a competitive way whereby the projects that get financing are important for the economy.

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Our Guest

The quest for innovation’s holy grail Our guest, Prof. Elżbieta Mączyńska, writes about complex issues of reforming the realms of education and science.

The US physicist and Noble Prize winner Kenneth G. Wilson, who presently campaigns for a reform of the educational system in the US, when asked what is more difficult—to win a Noble Prize or to reform education, said winning a Nobel Prize is easier because in reforming education “we proceed blindfolded.” This opinion was featured in a Wilson interview entitled Why your child is not going to win a Nobel Prize. This is a very important opinion because it underlines the complexity of the intersections between science and education.

Education targets people from different walks of life who have different cultural and family backgrounds and different talents. Educational programs are supposed to have positive impact on them but sometimes they may negatively affect their careers as well as their families and relatives.

Any reform of the educational system is a surgery performed on a living organism and thus its authors, as well as all those who implement the reforms, have to take a long-term responsibility.

When education and scientific research are carried out along too formal lines it all leads to shifting the real creative talents of the people involved in the projects into the fields of reporting and bullet points which eventually dwarfs the real innovative work.

Writer Antoni Libera was right when he said in an interview that we live in an era of “a giant make-believe”. Trying tirelessly to emulate the West we follow trends and fashions which often takes is a distant and rather pitiful caricature of the original. Sometimes we take such solutions that the West has already abandoned. Prof. Andrzej Walicki in his article Dangerous misconceptions in science points out to such problems. Prof. Walicki is an experienced scientist and teacher who

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are not an assembly line. They should not be about putting highly standardized portion of knowledge into intelligent heads. The system should be redesigned so it stimulates creative thinking in approaching problemsolving. This, in turn, requires individual solutions, because as Albert Einstein put it, imagination is more important than knowledge, because knowledge, contrary to imagination, has always its limits.

Lester Thurow said in his extraordinary book The Future of Capitalism: How today’s economic forces shape tomorrow’s world, that “a very uncertain investment,” because the gains from the education, if reflected by a function graph, take the shape of “U”.

First, the gain is big because when the education process starts it teaches importance skills such as reading and writing. The other high point of the “U” reflects the relatively huge benefits of being “distinguished from the crowd”. But in the middle lies the bottom of the “U” which reflects the low point of mediocrity, which does not pay. This is why many graduates who have finished mediocre schools find it difficult to get a job.

knows many scientific institutions in the West and who warns us against thoughtless emulation. He says that “In serious scientific circles in the US the so-called Citation Index is subject of jokes or purposeful omissions, because it is known that the struggle to get as many citations as possible is an inexhaustible source of corruption and pathology.” So, the issues of the cooperation between education and science require steps to prevent threats and misappropriations.

One of such problems is the waste of the creativity of scientists, researchers and teachers who face the meanders of regulations that are increasingly complex and unclear. A threat in itself comes from the ever-growing institutional structures of science which inevitably leads to boosting bureaucracy. Education and scientific research

There are yet other potentials in the IT revolution: wikinomics and macrowikinomics. Looking at education in the long-run perspective we see it may not look the way we used to know it. Management guru, Peter Drucker, noted that because of creative destruction higher education institutions may disappear altogether. What will replace them? We should look for the answer by merging quantitative analysis with holistic approach of science and education evaluation based on qualitative criteria. Albert Einstein said that “not everything that counts is countable, and not everything that is countable counts.” This quote best underlines the importance of qualitative approach to measuring the effects of science and education. However, because is complex, qualitative approach is one of the biggest challenges in the process of science and education rationalization. ::

Selected Publications of The Polish Economic Society (PTE) John C. Bogle

Enough: True Measures of Money, Business and Life The book helps one discover the genuine “diamonds of life” and distinguish them from false diamonds. (…) Enough teaches us economics and shows in a striking way the dangerous consequences of disrespecting its rules. The book is a must-read for anyone who wants to lead a better and wiser life.

Christopher A. Pissarides

Equilibrium Unemployment Theory Pissarides provides the labor market building-blocks for the new macroeconomics. A must-read for everyone in macro awnd labor.

awcy

Nobliści z ekonomii

nsen orte

o książce

eszcze opinia prof. Marka Góry) k Góra, Szkoła Główna Handlowa

Dyspersja płac

Dale

T. M

D.T. Mortensena jest znakomitą rozprawą poświęconą wyjaśnieniu bardzo ważtania, które od dawna czeka na przekonywającą odpowiedź: dlaczego pracowodobnych cechach, wykonujący podobne prace, nie są wynagradzani jednasiążkę otwiera empiryczna analiza ukazująca zróżnicowanie płac, a następnie kazuje, jak można wyjaśnić to zjawisko w świetle współczesnej teorii poszukiywających się na rynku pracy.” ge R. Neumann, University of Iowa

książki D.T. Mortensena jest również to, iż podejmuje temat nie tylko istotny ktywy teorii ekonomii ale też ważki społecznie. Nieuzasadnione z perspektywy onych różnice w płacach stanowią bowiem często przesłankę roszczeń i protecowniczych. Wnioski z przedstawionych badań mogą więc być użyteczne także dyscyplinarnych badań nad stosunkami przemysłowymi.” k Bednarski, Uniwersytet Warszawski

Dyspersja płac

Bob Hall, Stanford University

Dale T. Mortensen

Dlaczego podobni pracownicy zarabiają różnie?

Dale T. Mortensen

D.T. Mortensena „Dyspersja płac” to kolejna pozycja wydawnicza PTE w serii „Noekonomii”, przybliżająca polskiemu czytelnikowi dorobek laureatów Nagrody ekonomii. eta Mączyńska, Prezes Polskiego Towarzystwa Ekonomicznego

rtensen przedstawia oryginalne modelowe ujęcia poszukiwań odbywających nku pracy oraz weryfikuje je empirycznie przy użyciu bardzo szczegółowego anych statystycznych. Właśnie to połączenie najnowszych teorii z danymi empii sprawia, iż książka ta stanie się z pewnością obowiązkową lekturą dla wszystelników zainteresowanych ekonomiką pracy.” rt Shimer, University of Chicago

Elżbieta Mączyńska, President of the Polish Economic Society (PTE)

Dyspersja płac DLACZEGO PODOBNI PRACOWNICY ZARABIAJĄ RÓŻNIE?

Dlaczego pracownicy o identycznych kwalifikacjach, wykonujący podobne prace w różnych miejscach pracy, są różnie wynagradzani – wbrew temu, co głosi teoria wolnej konkurencji? Według szacunkowych obliczeń tylko około 30% faktycznych różnic płac w wynagrodzeniach pracowników wykonujących te same prace w różnych firmach i instytucjach można przypisać różnicom kwalifikacji oraz innych indywidualnych cech określających wydajność pracownika i jego sprawność zawodową. Autor książki próbuje wyjaśnić przyczyny pozostałych 70% obserwowanych różnic wynagrodzeń i dochodzi do wniosku, że różnice te – zwane dyspersją płac – wynikają głównie z frykcji utrudniających poszukiwania pracy (zwłaszcza niepełnej informacji o dostępnych ofertach pracy) oraz z różnic w polityce płac prowadzonej przez poszczególne przedsiębiorstwa i różnic w poziomie ich wydajności.

Wage Dispersion: Why Are Similar Workers Paid Differently?

Autor omawia różne teoretyczne hipotezy objaśniające dyspersję płac i sprawdza ich wiarygodność, analizując szczegółowe dane statystyczne o zatrudnieniu w Danii. Analizę rozpoczyna od przedstawienia prostego jednookresowego modelu rynku pracy, który przekształca następnie w model wielookresowy, uwzględniający poszukiwania pracy w trakcie zatrudnienia i zmiany miejsca pracy. Za pomocą tego modelu bada następnie różne modyfikacje teorii, które mogą wyjaśnić przyczyny obserwowanej dyspersji płac, szczególnie przyczyny różnic występujących w rozkładzie płac według przedsiębiorstw. W kolejnym kroku autor sprawdza, czy analizowane dane statystyczne są zgodne z założeniem, że polityka płacowa przedsiębiorstw jest podporządkowana dążeniu do maksymalizacji zysku, i dochodzi do wniosku, iż dane z duńskiego rynku pracy nie potwierdzają tej hipotezy; bardziej prawdopodobne jest, że płace są ustalane najczęściej w drodze przetargu płacowego między pracodawcą i zatrudnianym przez niego pracownikiem. W sumie, książka ta znacznie rozszerza naszą wiedzę o czynnikach powodujących zróżnicowanie poziomu płac w różnych przedsiębiorstwach.

Dale T. Mortensen’s book Wage Dispersion is another item in the PTE publishing series entitled Nobel Laureates in Economics. The book introduces the Polish readers to the complex wage shaping and differentiating mechanisms.

Elżbieta Mączyńska, president of the Polish Economic Society

Ludwig Erhard

Prosperity for All Ludwig Erhard’s book is about the policy of shaping the socio-economic system and its fundamentals, especially economic freedom and competition. Handing over the book to the readers, we are convinced it will contribute to improving their knowledge about the policy of shaping the social market economy model defined by the Polish Constitution.

Elżbieta Mączyńska, president of the Polish Economic Society

A full offer of PTE publications is available in the Society’s on-line bookshop: w w w.k si a z k ie konom ic z ne .pl Books can be ordered by Internet, in scientific booksellers and in the Polish Economic Society’s bureau at 49 Nowy Świat Str., 00-042 Warsaw, tel. (+48 22) 55 15 401, e-mail: zk@pte.pl

Cover Story

Building for the future

Pediatric Hospital now under construction at the Banacha Campus of the Medical University of Warsaw

Polish Market talks with Prof. Marek Krawczyk, Rector of the Medical University of Warsaw and the Head of the Chair and Department of General, Transplant and Liver Surgery.

Rector prof. Marek Krawczyk

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Medical University of Warsaw has recently celebrated its 200th anniversary. How has the university evolved over time?

Universities today are for education as well as scientific research. In the past the scientific research function was not always viewed as important. However, with time the academic circles realized that along with educating new professionals, an integral part of their mission and that of the academic institution should be scientific research. In this respect there are academia in Poland that can compete with established academia in Central and Eastern Europe. But we must not forget that today the future of higher education is being decided on the global level. Only the best universities, with modern curricula and a significant scientific track record will matter. As head of the Medical University of Warsaw I know that the two spheres—education and scientific development—can not be separated any more. For us, because of our history, education was always important

because as a medical school we were not into medicine for the medicine’s sake. But today, the scientific part of our university, our intellectual potential, is becoming more and more important especially vis-a-vis modern-day challenges for our civilization and the human race and for business. You have to see that in Poland we still learn about the specifics of the free market economy. Venture capitalism is still in its infancy here while many scientists do not even realize the commercial potential of their knowledge.

One of the problems is the bottlenecks in knowledge transfers from academia to business. How is this problem handled by the university?

Our goal is to advance the development of both clinical and practical medicine. What we do in our research labs, be it cytology, anatomy, biochemistry, has to reflect that knowledge transfer. It is, however, not always possible to achieve through a planned process because, sometimes, inventions come by accident.

When you look at the development of magnetic resonance imaging, it was not originally designed for medicine.

In Poland the largest tool to finance the development of science

Cover Story from the EU structural funds is that named Centre for Preclinical Research and Technology (CePT). It is a project implemented through the EU operational program Innovative Economy.

There is EUR 100 million to utilize on R&D through the CePT consortium which is comprised of the Medical University of Warsaw, the Warsaw University of Technology, the University of Warsaw and seven institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences. It is our goal to establish the leading biomedical scientific center in Central Europe through the CePT consortium.

It will comprise 10 environmental research centers, conducting research on the most common lifestyle diseases, especially: neoplastic, neurological and vascular, as well as ageing and age–related diseases. So CePT is a fact of life now but we still intend to set up a company, owned solely by our university, which will link scientific and commercial aspects of our projects.

W hat are the parts of the project that has already been started?

We had a cornerstone laying ceremony for a new Pediatric Hospital under construction at our Banacha campus. The Honorary Committee for the Hospital Construction is chaired by the First Lady who was present at the ceremony along with the Mayor of Warsaw Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz and Archbishop Henryk Hoser. When the hospital is built it will serve not only our university and patients from Warsaw but from the entire country.

The existing children’s hospital serves over 30,000 patients a year, of which 60% come from Warsaw and the Warsaw region.

The new hospital will combine all the units of the old one plus a neonatal unit combined with an intensive care unit for infants so there will not be any need for transporting infants for surgery to other hospitals. This is something we did not have before. The new hospital is scheduled for opening in 2014.

There is yet another center under construction. Four years ago we started the construction of the Library, Education and Information Centre. When it opens next month it will become the only such information hub for our students and scientists who will not only find there books and literature but also will be

able to exchange information with their colleagues all around the world through fiberoptic connection.

But this is not all...

The development strategy for our university embraces more investment projects, including the Rehabilitation and Sports Centre for physiotherapy and biological regeneration. The investment is already listed in by the Ministry of Sports and Tourism as a strategic project.

We will also build an oncology center. The financial side of that project is now being put together.

Our university also plans to house its dental clinics in a new building and renovate the building of the Center of Biostructure Research. I’m certain that the present boom in the investments in scientific infrastructure will significantly improve the conditions in which our students and scientists work, which in turn will lead to a boost in innovative products and services that they will deliver.

Apart from investing in its own scientific infrastructure the university is a part of an international consortium engaged in a program named InterQuality to develop financing systems for healthcare.

Indeed, it is a project that comprises 5 universities including the Medical University of Warsaw, the Standing Committee of European Doctors and the European Patients’ Forum. Our team, led by Prof. Tomasz

Hermanowski, coordinates the project. It is financed through the 7 th Framework Program of the European Union. The program came into being because of the general conclusion that the current programs for financing healthcare are set to boost the number of healthcare services instead of their quality. One of the goals of the project is to find the relation between individual models of healthcare financing and their efficiency and whether or not they provide for an equal availability of ambulatory, hospital and pharmaceutical aspects of healthcare. In other words the project aims at finding such system solutions for healthcare financing in which resources are used in the most efficient way. In essence, the project aims at cutting the unnecessary healthcare delivered to patients.

For instance, in the UK your general practitioner in fact limits the need to use hospital treatment. In Poland, however, after general practitioners were introduced the use of hospital treatment rose by 40% within a year. The ratio of hospital treatment per patient is very high in Poland and significantly higher than in Western Europe, despite the fact that the percentage of senior citizens is much higher in Western Europe than in Poland. Because more money has to be spent on hospital treatment in Poland there is not enough money left for new drugs development, for instance. This is wrong and has a negative effect on the entire healthcare system.

Centre for Preclinical Research, a project in the making

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Cover Story

Medical University of Warsaw new investment project— Rehabilitation and Sports Centre

A ny immediate conclusions?

There is a huge room for improvement when it comes to how we distribute prescription drugs, for instance. Nearly half of the drugs in the marketplace today are improperly prescribed and used. So the end products of the InterQuality research program will be new models of healthcare financing, including for pharmaceutical products, based on the analysis of the systems in different countries the world over including local conditions and regulatory environments.

Th e MUW has the largest proportion of foreign students of all Warsaw universities. What are the MUW selling points for foreign students?

The MUW has been running its medical program in English for foreign students for 20 years now. There are 600 students from 30 countries currently, mainly from Malaysia, Norway, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, Canada and the US. After Poland’s entry into the European Union in 2004, the MUW has been eyed with interest by potential students from Malaysia, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia. There are two English-language courses: 6-year course available for

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high-school graduates and a 4-year course for college graduates who have had preliminary education in medicine and who have a track record of having completed 1,200 hours of premedical studies.

Foreign students help boost the quality of our lectures and create cultural exchange at our university. The selling point for foreign students is our team of well-educated teachers and scientists, many of whom have acquired their skills and knowledge abroad. They have a creative approach to the teaching process as well: the study groups are small, students have direct access to patients and can take part in scientific research programs.

It is worth mentioning that our clinics have state-of-the-art equipment, which helps us offer the highest quality in medical education and training.

So this is all about quality...

If a university bets on quality and offers a diversified and rich education program it boosts its chances to develop, get new students as well as new grants for scientific research and education. So it is climbing to the top among its competitors in Europe. After all, it is about the importance of intellectual capital for the development of the economy.

The market for medical and healthcare services has been evolving fast. Is it difficult for MUW graduates for find jobs?

The MUW has nearly 10,000 students in 12 departments. Medical studies require a systematic approach, consistency and determination. If you choose the medical profession you choose a career which requires constant learning, being updated with the newest trends and accomplishments in the field of medicine. This is why there are ideas to change the education process for young medics so it offer a more flexible approach to what they should do after they graduate. But to offer a more flexible curricula we need more money, otherwise the quality of the eduction the university offers will go down. Our staff teachers are professionals and in order to retain them at the university we need to pay them more. Their professionalism is best expressed by the results their students achieve in tests that admit them to the profession. The MUW graduates in medicine and dentistry scored the top positions for the second consecutive year last year. We follow up the careers of our graduates, how they perform on the labor market. We see that they do well and that those who score high at the professional exames get priority in being sourced for ­specialization programs.

You were named the 2011 Personality of the Year by the specialist magazine Menedżer Zdrowia. How do you feel about it?

I’m greatly satisfied with my careers as scientist and teacher. When it comes to management, the Chair and Department of General, Transplant and Liver Surgery of the MUW has grown to be the largest such clinic in the country and one of the largest and most prominent in Europe.

We have so far performed over 1,000 liver transplant surgeries. And we progressed pretty fast from 6 transplant surgeries in 1996 to 141 last year. There are not too many clinics in Europe that can boast about such results. So we are really good and somehow I find it nice to see that our professionalism is acknowledged by such titles as the one you mentioned. ::

Excellence in Medicine

Allenort Radiosurgery Center Allernort Radiosurgery Center, based in Warsaw, is the only Polish clinic equipped with Gamma Knife Perfexion®—the most advanced tool in radiosurgery today used for non-invasive treatment of tumors and other brain diseases. Using the Gamma Knife Perfexion®, a team of renowned neurosurgeons performs a brain surgery without opening the skull. The operation is performed with the use of cobalt gamma radiation. The energy of 192 beams is focused on the target and destroys the pathological tissue. A single beam is safe and does no damage to the brain!

Compared to classical neurosurgeries, this method of treatment radically reduces the number of serious complications.

The Gamma Knife procedure requires only one-day stay at the clinic. After the procedure, the patient does not need rehabilitation and quickly returns to his or her normal life and daily routines.

The Gamma Knife Perfexion® technology replaces classical neurosurgery whenever possible.

Allenort Radiosurgery Center is also a diagnostic imaging center. The center is equipped with top-quality computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners, which guarantee accurate and precise diagnostic results for the entire body with a special focus on the brain, heart and the skeletal system.

For more information about the Gamma Knife technology and the team of neurosurgeons who perform the procedures see:

www.gammaknife.allenort.com The Allenort Group’s main focus is highly specialized medicine: cardiology, cardiac surgery, neurosurgery and diagnostic imaging.

Warsaw University made it to top 500 best universities in the Webometrics ranking 2011

Getting things right Polish universities began to feature in global rankings.

Jan Sosna In 2011, five Polish universities featured in the Webometrics world ranking of the 500 best universities, whereas a year earlier only two did.

The Jagiellonian University, a Polish leader, took 280th place (and 101st in Europe). Among the world’s top 500 universities were also Cracow’s AGH

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University of Science and Technology (298th position), University of Warsaw (327 th position), Warsaw University of Technology (338th position) and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (391st position). If the ranking was to include 1,000 universities, five other Polish universities would

be rated too. The Webometrics Ranking assesses universities on the basis of their presence and visibility on the Internet.

The University of Łódź was in the first hundred (91st) in the UI GreenMetric that ranks higher schools on their efforts toward campus sustainability and environmentally friendly university management. The Warsaw University of Technology Business School as well as one of the specialties under the Warsaw School of

Picture by Kuba Woźniak

Science

Science

Economics took the highest positions in their respective categories among all the CEE countries in Eduniversal— Best Masters and MBA Worldwide.

The Eduniversal ranking compares 4,000 specialties in 153 universities worldwide, according to study fields and geographic regions.

Although the legendary Shanghai List still includes only two Polish universities (Jagiellonian University and University of Warsaw) ranking them as far as in the fourth hundred, the above examples show that Polish universities have come to realize the importance of shaping their international image.

What made them do that? Among the factors activating Polish higher schools in the first place should be mentioned a comprehensive and radical reform of the science and education sector, launched three years ago.

A package of acts passed by the parliament has completely changed the management philosophy and the financing system of research and educational institutions. The previous scheme can be described as “central management” and “budget financing”. And now we introduce “setting-up of standards + independence of universities + competition-based public financing + autonomous private funding.” It means a revolution!

Obviously, such changes cannot be implemented overnight in a sector that is made up of 460 universities (including 132 public ones), educates 1,850,000 students and employs more than 100,000 academic staff (including 25,000 professors). However, we can expect that the transformations will occur relatively quickly because, in principle, they are about adjusting to the free market rules prevailing in the economic environment of the higher education sector and positively correlate with the aspirations of the individual school communities.

The example of a rapid and positive response to the new opportunities can be the fact that in the first year of the reform almost 97% of public universities and 94% of private ones adopted specific regulations on the financial support for the students and that more than a half of public universities and 70% of private ones signed with

students agreements stipulating the conditions and costs related to their whole period of study.

Of course, if the reform is to be successful, there must be a coherence between the actions pursued by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education and the aspirations of universities. The above mentioned “image campaign” goes in line with the ministry’s 2012 priority: raise awareness of Polish science in the world.

The Ministry is currently running the program “Ideas Plus”, aimed at people who had applied for EU grants, and although unsuccessful, they were highly rated. It has also launched “Top 500 Innovators” program, as part of which at least five hundred members of research institutes and universities will go to the world’s leading scientific centers. The Ministry also encourages researchers to make publications in foreign languages by providing them with financial support for translation (PLN 3.5 million in 2011 and there is going to be more) and inviting foreign scientists to the program councils of Polish periodicals.

Investing The reform is backed up by a significant increase in public expenditure on research and education. Resources are mostly allocated for the development and modernization of facilities. Already in the crisis year 2009, contracts were signed with six universities to build laboratories and lecture rooms fitted out with ultramodern equipment. Thanks to grants, the University of Warsaw will build a laboratory complex worth nearly PLN 600 million and the Warsaw University of Technology—nearly PLN 300 million. Development projects are carried out by individual universities, mostly in cooperation with local governments and businesses. For example, the University of Technology and Life Sciences in Bydgoszcz is building its scientific and agricultural laboratories together with the Regional Innovation Center. Of course, an important success factor is the ability to gain resources from various EU funds and to have these efforts supported by local governments and regional authorities.

Investments in facilities and equipment are not the only evidence of the Polish universities’ willingness to develop. Most schools acknowledge the conservatism of previous methods and teaching standards, and attempt to change it, using their ability to act independently. Some are going very far in this direction. One example is the Medical University of Warsaw that claimed its teaching framework too narrow and therefore joined forces with University of Warsaw and Warsaw University of Technology to start a new specialty: biomedical engineering.

Other universities are revolutionizing their academic offer thanks to newlybuilt laboratories and research centers.

Fifteen years ago, the Warsaw University of Technology turned the Precision Mechanics Department into the Mechatronics Department, developing within its scope such specialties as automation, robotics and bio­ cybernetics. Currently it is opening the next one—photonics. The School of Computer Science and Management in Rzeszów has introduced the aviation management, while the University of Gdańsk and the University of Technology and Life Sciences in Bydgoszcz have launched together bioinformatics and agrochemistry. The universities (especially those private) that do not have such an extensive research base make their best not to fall behind.

Their educational offers often include specialties that correspond directly to the social and economic development challenges, such as the climate change monitoring. There are also exotic courses, such as a two-semester postgraduate studies in oenology (the knowledge of wine) at the Pharmacy Department of the Jagiellonian University Medical College.

What professional are in demand?

Evidently, the issue of academic specialties is a problem not only in Poland. The most developed countries are facing the gap between the dreams of young people who want to be the

Schools that have small budgets for promotion do whatever they can to raise their visibility relatively cheaply, and above all efficiently.

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Science

stars, if not in Hollywood then at least courtrooms, or fashion designers, and the prosaic needs of the market.

A couple of years ago, Polish universities saw an assault on the departments of law, management, marketing, psychology, advertising, etc.—to the detriment of engineering, which, in the context of fast-growing infrastructure investments, caused a severe structural crisis in the labor market. In 2008 the government launched the assistance program for the “ordered specialties” under which the Ministry of Science and Higher Education provides universities, on a competitive basis, with additional resources to upgrade specific fields of studies, to develop cooperation with the business community, to organize internships, as well to award top students with incentive grants that amount up to PLN 1,000 per month.

The “ordered specialties” usually include: construction engineering, IT, environmental engineering, mechanical engineering, automation and robotics, biotechnology, and environmental protection.

The “ordered specialties” program proved to be quite effective.

In 2011 the construction engineering topped the list of the most popular majors with 30 thousand young people willing to study it. Moreover, among the 20 most popular fields of study there are as many as seven “ordered specialties”. However, the second most popular major was still management with over 28 thousand candidates.

The most difficult to get in were the Interdisciplinary Economic Managerial Studies, where 15 candidates competed for each place, and the Interdisciplinary Economic-Mathematical Studies at the same university (14.6 candidates for each place), both at the University of Warsaw.

For the fourth year running, the most “besieged” higher school in Poland was the Warsaw University of Technology: there were 8.7 candidates applying for each place both in Bachelor and Master studies. In total, 54 thousand young Poles from across the country bid for admission to the Warsaw University of Technology. Among the five most popular

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universities are also the Technical Universities of Gdańsk and Poznań, where more than 7 candidates competed for each place, and the Technical University of Łódź (6.2 candidates for each place).

The University of Warsaw was ranked 5th, right behind technology universities, drawing almost 44 thousand candidates. Jagiellonian University came in 2nd with 30 thousand candidates. Among the economics schools, the most popular were the Cracow University of Economics and the Wrocław University of Economics. The Pedagogical University of Cracow was unrivaled in the category of pedagogics, followed by the Academy of Special Education in Warsaw.

The most popular agricultural school were the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (nearly 14 thousand candidates) and the Agricultural University of Cracow (over 13 thousand candidates).

The first place among private universities fell to the Warsaw School of Social Sciences and Humanities, where over 2 thousand people wanted to start Bachelor and Master studies. Next were the Leon Koźmiński University in Warsaw, the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Kraków University College, the Łazarski University in Warsaw and the Wrocław School of Banking.

Demographic challenges Overall, in the academic year 2011/2012 more than 555 thousand students started higher education, including over 433 thousand at public universities and over 151 thousand at non-public ones. Polish universities need to get prepared for the demographic changes. According to a forecast by Ernst & Young, the peak number of students is already behind us and by 2020 we should expect a 0.6 million decrease. Is the higher education sector bound to shrink and plunge into crisis?

According to Polish President Bronisław Komorowski, “it may be an opportunity to boost the competitiveness of our research centers.

Some forecasts say that the number of students in Poland will decrease by as much as a quarter. You

can deplore it, but you can also realize the need to provide Polish science and the whole of higher education sector with the means of competition.

There is a chance that the amount of money in the system will remain unchanged despite the drop in the number of students.”

By contrast, Professor Barbara Kudrycka, the Minister of Science and Higher Education, sees the solution to the problem in the “process of internationalization of Polish universities”. In her speech before the parliament, she claimed that her ministry would develop a program designed to promote Polish universities and institutes abroad in order to attract foreign s­ tudents in case of demographic decline.”

This view is largely shared by universities. It is no accident that the article discussing their growing international recognition starts with Poland’s good performance in the Webometrics ranking. Schools that have small budgets for promotion do whatever they can to raise their visibility relatively cheaply, and above all efficiently.

The spectrum of actions is quite broad.

During this year’s visit to China, President Komorowski was accompanied by 50 rectors of Polish universities. Established a couple of years ago, the portal www.studyinpoland.pl presents Polish universities in English, Russian, Ukrainian and Chinese.

At the top The Eurostat figures show that the largest population (92%) of educated adults lives in Lithuania. Next come the Czech Republic (91.9%), Slovakia (91%), Estonia (89.2%), Poland (88.7%), Latvia (88.5%) and Germany (85.8%).

Poland fares well compared to other European countries, which is not without significance when it comes to the chances of Polish graduates in the labor market. In Poland, the unemployment rate among people with a university degree is considerably lower than among other population groups. If maintained, Poland’s good position will attract students from abroad. Arguably, it will also prompt the rivalry for Polish ­graduates. ::

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Innovation and R&D financing

Money for nothing?

The Polish R&D sector is in the middle of a structural overhaul Jan Sosna The structural realignment of the system by which R&D is financed in Poland is in its third year. While it is nothing new for many reforms took place in the past, this reform has a lot of money in the offing for R&D programs.

The new financial policy for supporting R&D is based on two state agencies who dole out significant amounts of money. The first is The National Science Center (NCN) which is charged with financing basic general R&D programs. In turn, the National Center for Research and Development (NCBiR) handles the financing of applied R&D, and programs that have strategic significance for the country. All monies are assigned trough competitions.

When it comes to the amounts of money that NCN and NCBiR have at their disposal, in 2012 NCN has about PLN 858 million, a major growth from PLN 471 million a year earlier. But 20% of that amount is to be distributed to young scientists. So far the center has awarded its financing to 11 projects, including 5 in charge of which are scientists who are just starting their careers.

The money that NCBiR has at its disposal is much bigger. In 2011 NCBiR distributed nearly PLN 1 billion to finance some 3,300 projects.

This year the agency has the budget of PLN 3.85 billion sourced from the state coffers as well as the EU operational programs. Presently NCBiR finances 61 research programs. The bulk of the money goes into aiding programs that have strategic importance for the Polish economy, that is advanced technologies for energy

While Polish scientific institutes find it easy to utilize EU funding available to them through the Cohesion Fund, they find it somehow impossible to successfully tap into other EU funds, most significantly those available through EU framework programs.

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production, interdisciplinary systems for scientific information, integrated systems for energy efficiency in buildings, nuclear energy, and safety technologies for coal mines. In 2012 NCBiR extended its strategic look at scientific research to embrace diseases of civilization, new drugs and regenerative medicine. The agency also attaches special importance to the support of R&D in such areas as IT, environment, mechatronics and materials, forestry and agriculture, national security as well as social and economic development of Poland in the increasingly globalized economy.

R&D programs in those areas can get between PLN 300 million to PLN 500 million each.

NCBiR has some PLN 1.2 billion to spend on helping develop practical applications of scientific inventions.

A program dubbed Leader, opened in 2009, targets young scientists who lead their own research teams and work with projects that were identified as having commercial potential.

One such project, which was granted PLN 60 million aims at developing commercial applications for graphene technologies. In turn, a program for the development of innovative technologies for new drugs and therapies as well as the production of generic drug received PLN 195 million. Innovative technology development for aeronautics, received PLN 300 million from NCBiR and PLN 20 million from the Polish Aeronautics Technology Platform, administered by The Polish National Contact Point for Research Programmes of the European Union.

NCBiR also runs over 20 programs of EU financing through the so-called European Research Area and bilateral research programs (so far two are running, with Taiwan and South Korea) initiated in 2012. Last but not least, NCBiR targets young entrepreneurs, researchers and students, with two programs, Start-Tech and Spin-Tech.

New paradigm The mechanisms of R&D financing seem complex. Yet, while they offer more money to R&D than last year and earlier, their underlining idea is to extend the participation of the private sector in shouldering the costs. So far the model was to source two-thirds of the money from the public sphere.

The goal is to lower the proportion to one third. This means more involvement in R&D from the private sector.

NCBiR together with the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management (NFOŚiGW) and the government-owned Industrial Development Agency (ARP) can boast about some success. The three agencies could raise their accumulated budget for R&D thanks to the involvement of defense holding Bumar together with Warsaw University of Technology and Military University of Technology. The result of the collaboration is a military technology cluster. More clusters, focused on the development of new energy sources including the carbon capture and storage technology, oxygen incineration, gasification of coal, biomass and agrarian waste, have been created under the scientific leadership from technology universities with 50% of financing shouldered by partners from the private sector.

Shake up at the academy The Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN) is one of the staples of R&D being in charge of 48 scientific centers in the country. With the reform of the R&D financing system the academy has been granted the freedom to reform the institutes it manages. So far PAN has merged different centers into three independent scientific institutes: Center of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Mammal Biology, and Center of Polymer and Carbon Materials.

The reform of the science sector has also enabled smaller centers to

Innovation and R&D financing

Innovation conundrum The current system of financing R&D and innovation in Poland is often criticized as inefficient and prone to administrative bias.

According to Prof. Grzegorz Gorzelak, who spoke at a press conference in March, Poland’s competitive advantage is the relatively cheap labor force but not the brain power of Polish innovators. He noted, however, that instead of spending more money on scientific research Poland should review the R&D financing system. “We think that we need to put more money into R&D and scientific research financing in Poland to boost innovativeness,” Prof. Gorzelak said. “I would not do that because we will only waste the money.”

Prof. Gorzelak said that as long as competitiveness is not present in R&D and inside of the academic circles Poland will not have any progress in innovations.

But this is not the end. Professor Jerzy Hausner from the Economic University in Kraków, who, along with Prof. Gorzelak and other economists has compiled a report entitled Innovations on the course—How to take Poland back on the prodevelopment track, complained that Polish business sector is not very pro-innovative. “Companies spend some 90% of their innovation budgets on the purchase of new machinery and technology,” Prof. Hausner said. “Only a little fraction of their budgets do they spend on developing real innovations.” ::

Picture iStockphoto

realign their structures to better suit the scientific challenges they face. In sync with this notion was the creation of Interdisciplinary Center of Physics, Chemistry and Medicine, by four scientific institutes in Kraków: pharmacology, nuclear physics, catalysis and surface physicochemistry. In turn, the Center for Earth and Planetary Research GeoPlant, was created by four PAN-affiliated institutions: a cosmic research center and three institutes for geophysics, geology and oceanography.

PAN cannot have all of its research projects financed only vis-a-vis their practical, commercial potential. Some PAN institutes continue to work on long-term research projects that need sustainable financing. However, most PAN-affiliated institutes will have to redesign their research objectives to embrace practical and commercial aspects in order to get financing.

Research for money Along with universities and PANaffiliated science centers, the R&D

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sector is comprised of 120 stateowned R&D institutes, 192 certified labs, and 24 state-owned and private commercial R&D centers. In light of the reform, state-owned centers have become R&D institutes (IBs) which can evolve further into science and commerce centers with the addition of commercial companies as partners. PAN-affiliated institutes can also become parts of those ventures.

In light of the reform, IBs do not get public money. They are forced to look for financing by winning grants for projects. They can also look for sponsors, offer expertise and other services on a commercial basis.

So far one such commercial R&D center has been created: Geocentrum Polska. It is a brainchild of the National Geological Institute who invited commercial companies such as the cooper producer KGHM, the gas producer PGNiG, and the mining expert PGE GiEK. Scientific partners in the venture are Kraków University of Science Technology AGH, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, the Maritime University of Gdańsk and Oil and Gas Institute.

Too closed, too self-centered One of the weakest points of the Polish R&D sector is its cooperation with foreign partners, even those who are based in Schengen countries (thus do

not require having a passport to travel to see them). While Polish scientific institutes find it easy to utilize EU funding available to them through the Cohesion Fund, they find it somehow impossible to successfully tap into other EU funds, most significantly those available through EU framework programs. The agency which manages those funds in Poland, KPK PBEU, is nearly redundant because it can grant to scientists in Poland only a little fraction of the EUR 54 million it has at its disposal. The problem is that to get grants through the EU framework programs, the applicants have to be in command of research projects that have international scope and include foreign scientists in the research team. Such projects, however, are few and far between.

Having said that it is worth noting that, based on the European model, Poland has its own technology platforms (PPTs). They bind together research institutes, the private sector, chambers of commerce and all those interested in the development of science for commercial purposes. Out of 29 such platforms in Poland two have earned some recognition at the European Union. Internal security PPT and Aviation PPT have managed to acquire a lot of attention from the European Union and a lot of grants as well. ::

Innovation

Educating future’s best Interview with Prof. Alojzy Szymański, Rector of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS-SGGW)

Can we regard WULS-SGGW as a university providing for the needs of the 22nd century, a university offering education that would meet requirements of our grandchildren?

Today’s WULS-SGGW is a result of work, ardor and wisdom of thousands of fellows and 140 thousand alumni. Sources of success and recognition are numerous: high quality of education, professional academic staff and recognisable and world- renowned diplomas. Not without significance is great care for students, possibility of self-fulfilment through participation in scientific circles, dance ensembles and sports clubs. We help our students develop their skills in many fields.

We have a modern campus that offers proper study and leisure facilities. WULS-SGGW is not only studying, but also the lifestyle. It is our students who create this style, while scientific staff guides them towards further development opportunities and well-being in the changing world. That is why our university is constantly changing too, adjusting its curricula to the requirements of the labour market, to scientific advances and economic developments going on in the present-day world. The results we achieve prove that we are heading in the right direction. We are investing in the future.

In what way is WULS-SGGW adjusting its curricula to the requirements of the labor market?

This is one of our priorities. We are constantly improving teaching programmes by adding new educational forms, levels and specialties. We also introduce new disciplines that are not directly associated with agriculture. It is because we want our graduates to have best chances possible to find employment in their acquired profession. The necessity to modify teaching programs at the academic level is a feature of our times. It mirrors an unprecedented variability of living conditions as well as changing requirements that graduates encounter in the labor market. Likewise, the modification of teaching programs comes as a consequence of ever higher expectations of students who are aware of the fact that more extensive education will enable them to better adapt to the requirements of the job market, to fill competency gaps and raise their attractiveness in the eyes of employers. We attempt to prepare our students for their prospective professional careers as young entrepreneurs willing to take on new initiatives and create new jobs – both for themselves and for other people. A future veterinary surgeon, civil engineer, technologist or agriculture graduate – they should all have a good understanding of law, economics and IT. Such qualifications are extremely useful, as they allow students to start and run their own businesses, providing them with basic knowledge of the labor law, forms and ways of having one’s economic activities subsidized, public relations, accountancy or e-technologies.

In response to the signals from the environment we live in, in recent years, we have considerably broadened the range of programs we offer by introducing a number of new majors such as: biotechnology, renewable energy technology, regional planning and management, environmental protection, finance and banking, management and production engineering, sociology. These majors are available not only at

the university’s regular departments, but can also be pursued on an interdepartmental basis. We offer 28 interesting and varied majors.

W ULS-SGGW has launched the Research and Teaching Centre of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, called Water Centre, and plans to establish other research sites. Is this the way to implement scientific achievements in the field of agriculture into Poland’s economy?

That is precisely why it was created, and we are planning to set up other research facilities, including the Centre of Nutrition and Food or the Centre of Applied Biology. The Water Centre project was co-financed from the resources of the Operational Programme Infrastructure and Environment. On an area of 1.5 hectares a water park (a river model) as well as a research and teaching facility were built. The model of a river reflects the natural river environment. You can see there how the water is banked up and what plants grow along it.

Water supply will be a global challenge in the centuries ahead, that’s why we will examine and teach how to stock water and reduce its consumption.

The Water Centre is the largest national water research site, equipped with 20 laboratories of different disciplines. It is also a test ground for scientists and students of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences-SGGW. Is this why WULS-SGGW was twice granted the title of “The most innovative and creative university in Poland” in 2010 and 2011?

It is above all the outcome of our efforts to constantly modernize the university and to apply the latest technological and IT solutions in the teaching and scientific process. Visibility of universities on the Internet was also assessed. Last year, WULS-SGGW launched a multimedia website www.sggw.pl, designed to meet recent web trends, an Internet television channel www.sggw.tv and several departmental websites. Moreover, the university has its profiles on YouTube and social networking websites. We also use the latest technologies in the teaching process: e-learning, modern teaching equipment, solutions facilitating studying and access to knowledge.

SGGW runs the “Programme for the modernization of education at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences-SGGW in order to ensure competitiveness and the high competence of graduates”, whose aim is to implement and promote e-learning (e-agriculture studies), increase qualifications of academic staff through training, enable graduates to gain experience, including abroad, support students and graduates in entering the labor market, including through keeping track of the alumni’s career paths. Creating professional prospects for graduates was also an important element of evaluation. There is the Graduates’ Promotion Section “Agrokadra”, University’s Incubator of Entrepreneurship; individual departments cooperate with many companies, and students participate in free courses guiding them through the difficult job market. The whole teaching process pursues the objective of educating highly qualified professionals for Poland’s economy. :: 3-4 /2012 :: polish market :: 25

Science and pharmaceuticals

Hope of deliverance Members of the Polish pharmaceutical industry believe that this sector harbors a great export potential.

Jan Sosna According to Paweł Przewięźliko­ wski, a member of the Polish Technology Platform for Innovative Medicine and the President of Selvita S.A., a biotech company based in Cracow, innovative drugs and pharmaceutical research represent an area of untapped potential in the Polish export sector.

“We have now tens of thousands of scientists working in the field of biomedical research, but the R&D sector of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry is poorly developed. There are only about a dozen companies that deal with innovative drugs. There are also very few R&D centers providing services,” Przewięźlikowski says.

Unused potential Przewięźlikowski says that in Cracow alone as many as 10 thousand highly paid jobs can be created in research companies that operate in the field of biotechnology and pharmacy. “This would bring PLN 700 million in taxes per year, and that is from one city —the Cracow’s cluster—only. It is also easy to translate these jobs into productivity, which in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries is even higher than in the electronics and IT. And this means large profits for companies, good salaries for employees and high revenues for the budget. In western countries, this sector is more lucrative than the media and telecommunications.”

For Przewięźlikowski there are plenty of suitable people for these highly paid jobs. “There are a lot of

We spend in Poland a few hundred thousand zloty per person to educate professionals, but we do not create jobs for them. We have human capital and demand from the global market in which we are very competitive, and yet we yield ground to India and China.

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candidates to hire. My company currently employs 115 people, including 45 with a Ph.D. degree. Regrettably, we can only take more or less 2 out of 100 candidates, while at least 1/3 of them meet the requirements. For example, we had a job application of a chemistry graduate with a degree from a renowned university who got a job at Tesco. We spend in Poland a few hundred thousand zloty per person to educate professionals, but we do not create jobs for them. We have human capital and demand from the global market in which we are very competitive, and yet we yield ground to India and China, where such countries as the United States, the United Kingdom or Germany shift production because of high labor costs on their domestic markets.”

Utilizing local talent When recognizing a patent protection or granting refunds to certain drugs, China’s and India’s authorities tend to put it as a condition to locate R&D workplaces in their countries.

In Poland it is unusual to proceed this way. “We should encourage or even force multinationals to create jobs in our country,” Przewięźlikowski says.

“It is also about supporting domestic pharmaceutical companies, both

large and small, so they locate workplaces here. We suggest, also on behalf of the Polish Technology Platform for Innovative Medicine, that innovative pharmacy and medicine, as well as medical equipment industry should be considered a priority sector. A dedicated support program needs to be devised for this particular sector.”

A better world A necessity to change is noticed by Andrzej Mackiewicz, Head of the Department of Medical Biotechnology at the Medical University of Poznań.

“Individual companies and even the world’s entire pharmaceutical industry have changed the philosophy of action,” Mackiewicz says. “Multinationals shut down their own research facilities and laboratories, because it turned out that the maintenance of thousands of scientists is not efficient and very costly. For example, in the US scientists are helped in setting up their own businesses, in which they can commercialize their ideas.

Therefore, the top priority is to create such a system in Poland. It is so much needed, for it would keep the money in Poland and will allow it to be reinvested in small Polish innovative, say, biotechnology companies.” ::

Advertorial

Another take on the Tarchomin offer Jan Wilk talks to Artur Woźniak, president of Polski Holding Farmaceutyczny pharmaceutical group

And here we can talk about your success. Polfa Pabianice was valued at approximately PLN 356 million while Polfa Warszawa at nearly PLN 1 billion.

Indeed, before the privatization started all three Polfas—Pabianice, Warszawa and Tarchomin—were valued at some PLN 1 billion.

Indeed, plus the PLN 150 million dividend that the group paid out to the Treasury for the last four years.

In the aggregate it is PLN 1.5 billion transferred to the Treasury. And it is because of your time at the helm of the Polfa group…

I’m pleased too…

The idea to privatize Polfa Tarchomin has died out…

No, why?

The two other Polfa companies have been sold to good investors and with good profit for the Treasury…

When it comes to Polfa Warszawa the transaction is still being probed by the Polish anti-trust agency UOKiK. Mr Starak, who has acquired the company, is on the right track to create a strong pharmaceutical holding.

In turn, the Adamczyks, who have acquired Polfa Pabianice, are business savvy entrepreneurs who see the future in both generic and innovative drugs. Their purchase is completely in sync with their business development strategy.

So indeed, the two companies have been acquired by investors who safeguard their further development.

This picture of success is a bit spoiled by trade unions who continue to protest against the sale of Polfa Warszawa and demand the prolongation of their employment guarantees…

Those demands are too high. Already the Polfa Warszawa staff have employment guarantees by 22 December 2014 through the social package approved by the company. In addition, the deal guarantees that they are entitled to a number of other benefits that cover them much more extensively as compared to what is required by the labor law. I want to underline that in light of the contract between the seller, PHF with the Treasury, and the buyer, ZF Polfarma, the buyer has to undertake a number of investment projects, worth tens of millions of zlotys, that aim at developing business for the company. This is actually the best way to safeguard a dynamic growth and development for Polfa Warszawa, which will be beneficial for the company and all sides concerned.

But Tarchomin is a disaster...

The wholesale of Tarchomin—the sale of the company and 75 hectares

of land that belong to the company— turned out to be a too optimistic idea.

Trade investors found the offer unacceptable in business terms.

There was almost nobody in the pitch...

We will restructure Tarchomin and find investors. More so as the company’s performance has improved significantly. The company ended 2011 with PLN 3 million above the line. Compare it to the 2010 result—PLN 17.7 million below the line...

What did you do to help the company stop burring money?

I introduced a disciplined approach to cost control by the board of directors and the supervisory board.

So the company is going to go through more structural realigning. I assume this strategy has been approved by the Treasury.

Indeed. The idea is to realign the structure of the company’s assets. The company’s land will be divided into separate plots and sold out. With this the company itself will become an interesting business proposition for trade investors. There should be no lack of bidders.

The first plot of land has already been separated.

Yes. It is a 8.7 hectare land plot in a very attractive location between the Modlińska, Płochocińska, and Ekspresowa streets. It is a great location for a big shopping mall with cultural attachments such as a multiplex cinema. The district of Warsaw, Białołęka, where the land plot is, has the population of over 100,000 inhabitants which is growing 5,000 a year. With the planned airport in nearby Modlin and a major communication route cutting nearby the plot it will be extremely attractive for business. More so as it will edge fast-track route connecting the Warsaw city center with the Północny Bridge, a part of a major Warsaw road system. I know that the Mayor of Białołęka is thinking in very positive terms about this plot. The investor will be selected through a public tender.

When?

We are working on the schedule right now! :: 3-4 /2012 :: polish market :: 27

Healthcare & innovation

Beyond the impossible A passion of a surgeon leads to the creation of a national system of population health diagnosis.

Checking the hearing of 16 million people in 62 countries leads to big conclusions. One of them is that today’s teenagers in 20 years from now may have their hearing capabilities degenerated to the state of a 70 year old person.

We know it thanks to an outstanding surgeon, clinical scientist and entrepreneurial spirit – Prof. Henryk Skarżyński. It was twenty years ago when he began his pioneering work.

His surgery method returned hearing to his patients and enabled hearing in those who had not have hearing capabilities at all. His work earned him a reputation of a miracle-worker and a pioneer of otolaryngology.

Sharing experience But this was only a beginning for Prof.

Skarżyński. Soon, he developed a new agenda to make his unique therapeutical method available to as many people as possible. Skarżyński opened a medical foundation Człowiek Człowiekowi (Man for Man) and soon after a center for diagnosing and treating people with hearing deficiencies Cochlear Center in Warsaw. That was not enough still.

After that he established the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing and later the International Center of Hearing and Speech in Kajetany near Warsaw.

Complex issues In his endeavors Skarżyński progressed from surgery to complex therapy solutions aimed at diagnostics, treatment and rehab, including many highlyspecialized medical procedures that are rare the world over. In addition, Skarżyński established a scientific research and teaching programs for new specialists – the Institute of Hearing Physiology and Pathology. Its flagship product is the International Center of Hearing and Speech in Kajetany. Established over eight years ago,

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the center today performs the largest number of surgeries out of all such centers globally.

All these accomplishment are not enough for Prof. Skarżyński. He is taking his next big step this year with the opening of World Hearing Center.

The earlier, the better His many years of experience let Prof.

Skarżyński to believe that because of the massive scale of the problem as well as its gravity in speech cohesive development and therefore personal development of the people with impaired hearing, it is necessary to diagnose hearing problems at the earliest stage possible. In 1992 the Skarżyński team took part in screening tests on 15,000 newborn babies. A similar program, executed in 1995-98 earned Skarżyński an award from the Minster of Health. Skarżyński went on to take part in similar a program undertaken on the European scale. At the same time he made sure that an infrastructure for such mass diagnosis is in place at the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing. By that time his institute diagnosed 60,000 newborns and infants.

applied telecommunication and information technologies to provide clinical diagnosis to its patients. Working together with the Ministry of Education the institute developed local diagnostic programs implemented by approximately 500 psychological-pedagogical consultation centers the country over.

European support In June 2007 at the European Parliament in Brussels a team from the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing held an exhibition entitled I can hear I see I can speak–the basis for communication and integration of Europe’s young generations. Along with the exhibition a cycle of lectures was held. Many MPs had their hearing and seeing checked.

All that aimed at voicing at the level of the European Parliament important problems of interpersonal communication. The exhibition was a successful springboard for Skarżyński to put the problem onto the European agenda. After three years of talks, in June 2011, the EU signed the European Scientific Consensus for hearing, vision and speech screening in preschool and school-age children. The consensus is now viewed as one of the most important accomplishments of the Polish Presidency in the EU Council. Thanks to it, Poland is in the lead globally when it comes to screening tests for hearing impairments in children at different ages.

Systemic thinking Later, Skarżyński developed his system further to embrace schoolchildren. A program which by the end of 2011 covered 500,000 individuals aged 6-18 years delivered the results Skarżyński somehow anticipated – 20% of the sample had hearing problems. The real breakthrough in massdiagnosis of hearing problems came when the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing, together with Institute of Sensory Organs and the Chair of Multimedia Systems at Gdańsk University of Technology, developed new multimedia tools for hearing diagnosis – a system known as Senses Examination Platform. The institute

Diagnostic systems and tools developed under the auspices of Prof.

Skarżyński won over 100 awards from different institutions the world over so far. His program of screening tests for communication senses won the recommendation of the European Commission and the European Council.

During the Polish presidency in the EU Council the program was listed among the European Council conclusions on healthcare. Eventually, Skarżyński’s brainchild, the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing won a financial backing from the European Union. ::

Healthcare & innovation

The first such project in the world, Integrated System for Operational Communications (SZOK) was developed for mass-scale diagnosis of hearing, vision and speech by the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing under the leadership of Prof. Henryk Skarżyński. The project was developed as part of the Operational Program Innovative Economy in 2008-2010. It was later put to clinical tests. The program’s scope is national. Its financing, in its bulk, came from EU funds.

The innovative part of the system is the application of communication technology in diagnosis

which supports data transmission to a medical data center. The data, integrated in a national database, helps cut the time patients have to wait for doctor’s consultation at the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing. The system utilizes unique solutions in such areas as telemedicine and e-healthcare and is the basis for the creation of a national register of diagnosed patients and subsequently, the establishment of the Screening Center.

The technological platform developed for the SZOK proved good enough to support mass-scale

diagnostic programs in other areas. Apparently, it may serve as the basis for the creation of a universal system of mass-scale medical diagnosis which will link patients with the medical service they need. For instance, in cooperation with Institute of Cardiology in Warsaw, the system was successfully applied to cover approximately 10,000 children with cardiological diagnosis. With new modules to support other areas of medical diagnosis, the system can eventually become a national system of monitoring the health of the entire populations. ::

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Healthcare & innovation

Thinking big The ideas of Prof. Henryk Skarżyński, when put into practice, will simply make the world a better place

in Poland which will develop into international ones. To name just a few, we will finish the project of screening the hearing, eyesight and speech of the entire population aged 6-7 years which will lead to the introduction of such programs into schools. It will also be able to cure partial deafness and perform surgery on the inner ear, among others.

What is the World Center of Hearing all about?

The center is a unique project on the global scale. It executes an idea of a scientific network which spans all continents which comprises specialists in different branches of medicine and also biomedical engineering, acoustics, physics, material nanotechnologies, psychology and pedagogics.

The center is meant to implement globalscale medical research into the diagnosis and treatment of hearing impairments. This will be implemented by the state-of-the-art clinical research plus education which will disseminate the modern therapeutical standards through the wide circles of professionals.

Why is this mission so important?

According to different estimates presented at world congresses, today some 1 billion people the world over suffer some hearing impairments. The aging society, especially the Western society, faces aging-related hearing problems. It is a major challenge for researchers who look for new ways of treating those problems through surgery, gene therapies and other methods that are available thanks to the modern implant technologies, and other technologies including IT which is the staple for the development of telemedicine.

What do you consider your biggest success?

I have been lucky enough to meet interesting people. I have accomplished many interesting projects as well. In terms of scientific significance my biggest accomplishment is the development of a method for diagnosing and treating hearing impairments, which as a program was implemented globally for adults in 2002 and children in 2004. When it comes to managerial accomplishments and such that include clinical research and teaching, my biggest accomplishment was the creation of the Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing. Soon the institute will have a new heart: the World Hearing Center in Kajetany, near Warsaw.

What is the significance of the center?

The center is a chance for Poland to establish itself as an important landmark on the scientific and medical maps of the world. It is

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a chance for Poland to carry out new research projects, to coordinate projects between different scientific centers, to utilize the potential of Polish scientists and develop new technologies. It is also an opportunity to offer new therapeutical methods to patients in Poland for it is them who will be the first to benefit from the center.

The center is a breakthrough project in many ways. It is about new labs, a new team and new jobs. It is also about new cooperation potential on the international scale which in turn means an enlargement of our clinical base for the benefit of our patients. In other words, when the center becomes reality we will be able to do much more than we can do now for many more patients.

When we look at it now in scientific terms we know the center will not only enable us to follow the most important scientific discoveries but also will help us to contribute to many research projects and initiate many projects

What are the pros of telemedicine for patients today?

The first telemedicine network that we have opened lets us cover with medical monitoring over 2,000 families in Poland. In addition we use telemedicine to communicate with clinics in Odessa, Ukraine, where over 100 patients undertake rehab under our control. Telemedicine, including tele-rehab, is the future.

In January a Qatar government delegation, including the representatives of the Qatar healthcare, visited the center. What is the scope of the center’s international cooperation?

There are foreign visitors in the center every week. We cooperate with scientists abroad but also we have more and more foreign patients. When the World Center of Hearing moves to the new headquarters our international work will intensify, including scientific centers in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. ::

Advertorial

Linking business with science Investment in scientific research and biotechnological products and the application of innovative solutions is the recipe for expansion for the largest Polish pharmaceutical producer, Polpharma SA, based in the northern city of Starogard Gdański.

Polpharma, Poland’s leading pharmaceutical company, invests substantial resources in its own in-house research and development work. It also works with research centers and universities. Many innovative solutions developed by scientists and already put into practice are the product of this cooperation. One example is the production of alendronate sodium and sildenafil citrate based on new methods of synthesizing the drugs.

The Polpharma Scientific Foundation, set up in 2001, plays a major role in the company’s interaction with the scientific community. The foundation’s mission is to support the development of pharmaceutical and medical sciences by funding research projects in these fields. The foundation supports mainly basic research. “I am convinced that our country’s prosperity and development depends on scientists,” says Jerzy Starak, president of the Supervisory Board of Polpharma

and the foundation’s initiator. “We can remove the disparities in the development level and living standards between Poland and the most developed countries in Europe and in the world only by investing in science and modern technologies. The huge social, knowledge, skills and enterprise capital the Polish people have means we have the potential to carry out top-standard scientific studies.

This is why we provide funding for basic research in pharmacy and medicine conducted by Polish scientists, especially the younger generation, who – thanks to economic changes - finally have an opportunity to compete with their colleagues in other countries on an equal footing. The contest for research grants is the most important program pursued by the foundation. The 2011 contest was devoted to biotechnology. By the decision of the foundation’s Board and on recommendation from its Scientific Council, two grants were awarded

for research projects. Since its inception, the Polpharma Scientific Foundation awarded grants to 57 research teams. The 11th contest, which will assess original work making a significant contribution to medicine and pharmacy, is now underway.”

Biotechnology is a new strategic direction in Polpharma’s development. The company is finalizing the construction of a modern biotech laboratory in the Gdańsk Science and Technology Park, where research will be conducted on innovative drugs, biobetters and biosimilars. “I believe that our development in this area will have a practical dimension – aging populations will gain access to cheaper treatment,” says Jerzy Starak. “This will also result in the activation of national research centers. We would very much want to stimulate the work of scientists at academic centers. This is why our research and development center has been designed to combine industrial standards, which guarantee the production of high-quality drugs, and academic creativity and scientific freedom needed to solve complex problems in the field of contemporary biology and pharmacology.”

The decision to enter the area of biotechnological innovation is one of many examples of innovative thinking at Polpharma. The company has topped the league table of the 500 most innovative companies in Poland produced by the Institute of Economics Polish Academy of Sciences. It was also ranked first by the Wprost weekly in its Innovator 2011 list.

Polpharma applies process and technology innovations, raising its operating efficiency and minimizing its impact on the natural environment. The drug forms it manufactures are increasingly patient-friendly. Polpharma also exploits innovative ideas in promoting its products and building relations with patients and the medical community. It is a leader in e-marketing and communication with physicians by means of modern Internet tools.

Innovation is a must for a company which wants to win against the increasingly strong competition. Polpharma, which has beaten global giants on the Polish market in terms of sales value, is the best example of such a company1. ::

1

IMS Health data for the pharmacy and hospital market for 2011.

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Advertorial

To have a vision, apply it in surgery, meet a satisfied patient...

Is there anything else one can wish for?

The first decade of the 21st century was a time of huge challenges and rapid technological development, but also a time of the global crisis. In this unusual period, Lechosław F. Ciupik and his company LfC have consistently pursued the same goal which was set at the very start of the company’s operations: to meet the needs of human health in today’s world—cure ill spines. Measuring up to nature is the company’s philosophy and vision for development. The challenge seems huge because it involves restoring health to many patients and giving them a new lease on life.

The interdisciplinary activity the company has conducted for over 20 years now, an activity relying on the expertise, experience and competitiveness acquired over the years, is the basis for undertaking this big challenge. The philosophy adopted by LfC prompted practical goals. Activities were undertaken aimed at protecting people against disabilities, killing pain, helping them retain motor skills and stay healthy while aging, and give them the joy of recovery. This new vision focused on modern technologies and biomaterials, combined with emphasizing the importance of psychology as a significant factor supporting surgical treatment processes.

All these activities would not have any chance of success without the right base. A modern enterprise, whose main pillar is its research, engineering and managerial staff, was built under the guidance of an outstanding visionary, President of LfC Lechosław F. Ciupik. Doctor Ciupik, a reputable inventor, careful observer and, first of all, an enthusiast of innovation, has not ceased to inspire his young associates to seek to improve the world around them. He shows them new needs and arouses their anxiety because, as he says, anxiety is the driver of progress.

This, coupled with Lechosław Ciupik’s creative determination – impatience combined with his urge to improve the world – helped the company enter a very elite area of interdisciplinary activity, one combining bioengineering and medicine. It is called spine implant surgery (spondyloimplatology). New therapeutic functions are constantly added

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to the surgically inserted implants developed by LfC. Thanks to its wide-scale cooperation in the area of medical bioengineering and active participation in global trends in treating spine problems, the company has gained a good reputation on the international market.

What is more, LfC made the effort to join the best, carved out a niche for itself and entered the biomedical high-tech highway, sometimes moving along its fastest lane.

In an effort to raise service quality and ensure patient wellbeing, the company started to put into practice innovative space technologies, which had not been used in medicine before. Among such pioneering steps was the decision to exploit the Electron Beam Technology (EBT). The results were soon to come.

EBT was used for the first time ever in the production of a new generation of implants.

Called CarLIF, the implants are used in the treatment of spine diseases which affect the intervertebral space. In this case, the technology is used to build a three-dimensional implant by means of a computer-controlled electron beam and bio-titanium powder.

Apart from being economical, the technology enables reproducing very complex anatomical shapes resulting from the complexity of the human osseo-neuro-muscular system. The CarLIF created new capabilities, successfully filling a gap in the group of intervertebral implants and creating effective spine treatment methods less invasive to the patient. During the very first international presentations, the product gained wide recognition and was praised by experts because

of its innovative design, which enables efficient implantation and gives the surgeon greater comfort.

LfC’s innovative products have encouraged many outstanding spine surgeons from across the world to work with the company.

Another important invention from LfC is the revolutionary medical technology SLIDER for the surgical correction of displacements of the vertebral column, a spinal disease which is one of the most difficult to treat. The technology has been presented at the most important international congresses, including the EuroSpine Congress in Milan. The SLIDER implant turned out to be a much-awaited solution and received great recognition from spine surgery specialists. The invention was hailed as “perfect simplicity,” an innovative approach and an excellent tool in the hands of an experienced surgeon. It is expected that the solution may contribute to a major progress in innovative spine surgery development. SLIDER technology has patent protection in more than 10 most advanced countries, including the United States and China.

Spine surgery creators, including LfC, are aware of the great responsibility involved in their activity. It is not only formal responsibility but also moral responsibility for the patient. This is why LfC’s most important requirement in its dealings with external partners and within the company is that “patient safety comes first.” This rule leads to a triple positive feedback: if the patient is safe (treated effectively), then the surgeon is safe (satisfied) and the company is safe and can continue to work and create progress.

So far the company’s DERO Spine System implants have been used in almost 40,000 surgeries in Poland and other countries. This provides the driving force for the company to develop. It gives LfC the strength to develop new solutions and enter a “higher orbit” with increasingly good methods and surgical means so as to “measure up to nature” are restore the joy of living to patients.

The publication includes knowledge resulting from a European project entitled Innovative, Low Invasive Non-Fusion and Fusion Methods for Surgical Treatment of Dysfunctions of the Human Osseo-NeuroSkeletal System carried out under the Operational Program Innovative Economy. ::

mission: Measuring up to Nature

R&D and business

In innovation we trust Polish Market talks with Edward Nowak, President of Bumar, defense equipment producer, about the company’s engagement in innovative technology development.

On March 2012 Bumar and two other companies of the Bumar Group— Bumar Żołnierz and PIT—signed a letter of intent with Warsaw University of Technology (WUT) and Military University of Technology (MUT) on research and development cooperation as well as on creation of a defense industry cluster. What are the specific objectives set for this form of cooperation?

The Bumar Group has been cooperating with the best Polish universities, including many WUT and MUT faculties, for many years implementing research and development initiatives in national security and defense.

The issue of national security and defense becomes more and more crucial

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in terms of today’s threats posed by terrorism and natural disasters. We are looking for such technologies that are proven in extreme conditions. So far such technologies have been used by military services but now are being successfully adapted to meet the demands of the civilian market as so called dual-use technologies. Science and industry need to join their efforts in R&D to lead to new solutions in national security and defense. In Poland scientists often work in dispersed centers, their research is small-scale, and often it does not meet the industry’s requirements. On the other hand, the industry often doubts if scientists do their best to meet their deadlines and deliver quality results. So with our agreement we are introducing a new framework and quality to cooperation between science and industry.

We open to more flexible forms of cooperation within the cluster particularly when it comes to working with small and medium-sized companies.

The cluster is meant to be a platform for mutual support and cooperation between science and industry.

It will support and promote Polish science and industry interests in the political and social arena in Poland and abroad.

In the end of 2011 Bumar Group obtained subsidies from the State Treasury of over PLN 370 million to finance its research and development projects. Are the results of these projects innovative?

The research and development projects financed by the subsidies are being implemented by eight Bumar Group companies. Their results will be of vital importance to the defense industry and to the Ministry of Defense.

They will have an impact on the development of simulators and training equipment, battlefield management

systems, the integrated battlefield management system Soldier of the Future, and others. Their characteristic feature is what we call inter-operativeness, which means that each of those systems consists of individual modules that can be used in different configurations which are the most desired at certain times.

What are the plans of Bumar Group in terms of product innovation in the years to come and what will be their source of financing?

Bumar Group today has earmarked some PLN 700 million for research and development. We expect to have innovative products or their components that Polish clients, and clients abroad we hope, will find attractive.

This is a tendency we will keep working on. Bumar Group taps to all sources of financing available. For instance we take part in contests for project financing organized by National Centre for Research and Development, the Ministry of Defense and the European Union. We also keep searching for opportunities to create our own R&D funds, or for cooperation with external funds. For instance we exclusively shoulder the cost of the anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense system codenamed the Shield of Poland. This is a very technologically advanced project carried out by two companies of the Bumar Group: Bumar Elektronika and Bumar Amunicja. The results of this project will be crucial for the development of new-generation anti-aircraft and anti-missile protection, which has a pivotal role in the entire national defense system.

When you look at the rankings of innovative companies, Bumar Group is one of the most innovative in the country. Bumar Żołnierz was ranked third most innovative company in a ranking called Lista 2000 by the daily Rzeczpospolita. The company was awarded because it had increased its R&D budget by 300%, but has also become one of the leaders when it comes to the number of R&D employees, licenses, patents and innovative products it developed and introduced to the marketplace. ::

A cutting-edge company Hydromega was founded in 1988. From the beginning of its activity it has been dealing with designing and manufacturing hydraulic actuator systems and industrial automation. Parallel with the production of hydraulic power supplies and devices with hydraulic drive systems, Hydromega carries out research, development and implementation works. Permanent cooperation with industrial plants and solving, often difficult, technical issues gave the company practical knowledge which is used in its projects. The company has 17 utility models and patents, as well as over 8,000 solutions in the field on hydraulic actuator systems.

Owing to its many years of reputation and the fact that its brand is well-known, Hydromega was able to establish permanent cooperation with technical universities, including the Military University of Technology, the Gdańsk University of Technology and the Military Institute for Tank and Automotive Technology.

www.hydromega.com.pl HYDROMEGA Sp. z o.o. ul. Wrocławska 93 81-553 Gdynia tel. 58 664 77 04 58 664 72 71 fax 58 644 72 92

Innovation and R&D

Research institutes – reformed, stronger and competitive Polish Market talks to Prof. Leszek Rafalski, chairman of the Supreme Council of Research Institutes (RGIB).

Th e law on research institutes came into force 1.5 years ago.

Looking back, how do you assess this law and changes in the operation of the institutes?

After this period of time, one can say that it is a good law. First of all, it streamlined the operation of our research units because it defined the scope of their activity. Also, the nonprofit principle was adopted, which means a large part of the profit generated by the institutes may be set aside for their own research. This enables the institutes to conduct scientific research projects for which funding would otherwise be unavailable. It is a very good solution.

The law also enabled setting up science and industry centers, whose mission is to put research findings into practice and take part in large international projects, which means enhancing our competitiveness on the international market. Additionally, research institutes are able to set up companies and partnerships whose activity involves research and the application of new solutions, transfer of research findings to the marketplace or technology transfer.

Another change, which is highly praised, is that the director of a research institute now has to meet much higher requirements. He or she needs to hold at least a doctor’s degree and have sufficient command of a foreign language to be able to communicate freely within the range of scientific research topics. The director should also have experience in management.

In the 21st century, the director of a research institute has to combine the skills of a manager and scientist and be professional and creative. The person should be an authority both at home and abroad, something which would certainly contribute to enhancing the competitiveness of the institute on the international market.

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But it is worth noting that, even before the official reform, there was a lot of change going on in our research institutes. In the past years, research and development units underwent restructuring, especially consolidation. As a result, there emerged larger research centers, with a stronger potential and greater importance in Poland and in the international arena.

W hat role should research institutes play in the Polish economy and science? What should be done to improve cooperation between business and the scientific community, without which technology transfer and commercialization cannot take place?

Research institutes should continue to play the leading role because by conducting research with a view to industrial applications they meet the needs of the Polish economy. There are now 119 research institutes in Poland and they employ over 27,000 workers. They conduct scientific research - mainly applied but also basic one – for the needs of the economy, including the healthcare, agriculture, defense, environmental protection, infrastructure and security sectors. Research institutes stand behind around 80% of practical applications in Poland. The institutes and their scientists win most awards for innovation and services to the economy and society in Poland.

Today’s economy requires building qualitatively different relations between scientific institutions and business. But these relations still leave much to be desired. There are no tax mechanisms supporting business, like for example tax breaks for research and practical applications. The existing law on supporting innovation still does not function properly. Entrepreneurs do not want to provide funding

for research because the financial risk involved is too high. Changes to the laws on corporate and personal income taxes would be an important measure to encourage spending on scientific research.

The law on research institutes offers them many new opportunities, but also presents them with many challenges. What, in your view, are the most important challenges in the near future?

In the near future, our effectiveness in the EU’s Horizon 2020 program will be a test for the institutes.

EUR80 billion has been set aside for the program, among whose objectives is to improve innovation. This is why the research institutes, institutes of the Polish Academy of Sciences and research units at universities should work with industrial enterprises in science and industry centers. The combined potential of all Polish research units offers a chance for us to enter the program and carry out good and interesting projects. On my part, I will be trying to encourage research units to work together so that we are more successful in the Horizon 2020 program than in the Seventh Framework Program.

Also important is the participation of research institutes in large strategic programs funded by the National Center for Research and Development (NCBiR). The programs, contributing to the development of an innovative and efficient economy, should involve the most important development areas such as energy security, transport and infrastructure security, sustainable agriculture and medicine. ::

Innovation & economy

The discreet charm of economic sciences The Institute of Economics of the Polish Academy of Sciences—research, teaching and checking the economic reality.

Leszek Jerzy Jasiński

European Union affects the country’s economy and about current economic development by renowned economists and business people.

Promoting economy INE PAN runs an annual research into the largest and most efficient Polish companies—as viewed through the INE PAN criteria—which comprise the ranking “The Pearls of the Polish Economy”. The ranking is compiled by a team of economists led by Jan Macieja, PhD. In turn, a team led by Prof. Tadeusz Baczka, compiles a list of companies which have outstanding innovative products.

Many independent rankings of Polish companies have their roots in the pioneering work of INE PAN. In many cases they date back to the 1980s.

Coordinating research

The Institute of Economics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (INE PAN) has the scientific interest in the entire set of economic science, including theoretical economics, applied economics as well as all scientific fields that are related to economy or such that enhance the understanding of economic processes.

INE PAN is the only PAN-related scientific center which undertakes research of the economic sphere.

Along with the entire academy INE PAN serves the goal of “scientific development, the promotion and dissemination of science as well as promoting the development of education and enrichment of the national ­culture.” (See: Article 2 of the PAN Charter)

analysis and forecasts for the Polish economy, the global economy, and the process of Poland’s integration with the European Union and its impact on the Polish economy.

Helping policymakers

Watching trends

INE PAN carries regular research into macro and microeconomics and economic policy. The institute also does

Quarterly indicators, collected for the last 15 years, are the basis for evaluating changes in GDP growth, industrial output, domestic demand, investment, exports, imports, unemployment rate and inflation. In addition, the report includes the analysis of international relations that are critical for Poland’s economic growth. It also has remarks about how Poland’s membership in the

Many independent rankings of Polish companies have their roots in the pioneering work of INE PAN. In many cases they date back to the 1980s.

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Sharing knowledge INE PAN has its own quarterly Studia Ekonomiczne, which carries articles about INE PAN research results as well as the institute’s applied studies.

The quarterly is edited by Prof. Urszula Grzelońska.

Twice a year INE PAN publishes a report entitled Polish Economy.

Prognosis and Opinions, which includes short-term forecasts on the most important macroeconomic trends.

INE PAN coordinates the work of the NSN Scientific Network Assessment which probes the impact of R&D on the social and economic development.

INE PAN has the authority to award scientific titles (PhD and PhD Plus) and recommend scientists for the promotion to the rank of professor of economics.

INE PAN runs post-graduate and PhD studies in many different areas.

The institute’s MBA course, available for several years now, has turned out to be very popular. More and more students enroll.

Recently INE PAN has launched a new program—Executive Doctor of Business Administration, which comprises MBA and PhD curricula.

In cooperation with Poland’s central bank (NBP) INE PAN runs a postgraduate program for journalists on c ­ entral banking and monetary ­policies.

People power Since its creation in 1980 INE PAN has worked with many scientists, many of whom, after writing their PhD thesis, went on to work in high positions in the state’s administration and economy. Among INE PAN former employees there are: one prime minister, one mayor of Warsaw, three NBP presidents, three senators, six members of the Parliament’s lower chamber, ten government ministers, and four economic advisors to the nation’s ­president. ::

Innovation

Sustainable development of innovation The Kraków-based Oil and Gas Institute spawns innovations in Poland and abroad.

The Oil and Gas Institute (INiG) is a research institution working for the Polish oil and gas industry. INiG deals with all problems associated with petroleum and natural gas – from the exploration for hydrocarbons and their extraction to the storage, transport, distribution and use of natural gas, petroleum and petroleum products to the development and improvement of liquid fuel production processes. Among the services the institute provides is the evaluation of oil and gas exploration prospects, technological evaluation

Award-winning innovations implemented by INiG in recent years: :: CO2 sequestration technology; award at the Geology 2007 contest of the Minister of the Environment; :: Modified catalytic hydrogen process of regeneration of the waste oils; Teraz Polska Promotional Emblem, Polish Product of the Future title; :: The method of increasing accuracy and depth of geological medium exploration through the modification of the spectra-response characteristic of registered seismic vibrations; award of the Minister of Science and Higher Education; :: Packages of additives to diesel oil, heating oil and bioesters; :: Technologies for the production of fuels and biofuels – more than 10 patented technologies for the production of petrols and diesel oils of the latest generation meeting the requirements of the Euro 5 emissions standard.

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of petroleums and their production processes, and quality control for petroleum products and biocomponents.

The sustainable development of a competitive knowledge economy depends to a large extent on the sustainable development of the energy industry. It requires accurate energy demand projections, the use of indigenous energy sources, secure supplies of imported fuels, energy-efficient technologies and efforts to minimize impact on the natural environment from energy production. Hydrocarbons – petroleum, natural gas, liquefied hydrocarbon gases, liquid fuels, new environment-friendly fuels derived from them and alternative fuels from renewable sources will be playing an important role in meeting these requirements in the coming 20 years. One of INiG’s strategic goals is to actively support innovation and competitiveness in this area.

For many years INiG has spared no effort to get modern research equipment and specialist software needed to carry out its basic statutory tasks and development work for the Polish oil and gas industry. In its activity, INiG has always paid special attention to innovative and patentable solutions with a potential to be applied in industrial practice. INiG employs over 400 workers, including inventors and engineers - people contributing to progress in engineering science. Compared to other Polish institutions, INiG has a high innovation index, with 60 patents and utility models obtained in the past four years, 23 registered trademarks and 39 new applications for patents and utility models. Most of these solutions

have been applied in industry. In 2008-2011 researchers working for INiG published over 500 articles and monographs.

INiG’s competitiveness in building a knowledge economy is reflected in the 250 awards and honorable mentions it was granted at dozens of national and international invention and technology exhibitions, including those held in Brussels, Nuremberg, Moscow, Budapest, Geneva, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and Warsaw. INiG has twice received awards and certificates of distinction from the Minister of Science and Higher Education for its special activity in promoting inventions abroad.

It also won twice the Grand Prix award in the international Eko contest for innovative activity supporting environmental protection and improving environmental quality.

In recent years, in keeping with its motto: Innovation, Implementation, Development, INiG has carried out many innovative projects in conjunction with Polish oil and gas companies. The implementation of a system for the evaluation of the state of gas distribution networks and risk analysis is one of the products of this cooperation with Polish partners. INiG examines the properties of well cores from gas-bearing shale formations, and conducts research into new types of biofuels and takes part in the process of their application on the Polish market. Under the Operational Program Infrastructure and Environment, INiG takes part in such projects as the construction and expansion of underground storage facilities for natural gas, construction of the gas transmission system, construction and modernization of the gas distribution system, and construction of the electricity connection between Poland and Lithuania and the LNG terminal in Świnoujście. It conducts projects with European partners and partners outside Europe. INiG has implemented an ISO 9001:2008 quality management system while its 22 research laboratories have accreditation according to ISO 17025:2005. It uses around 600 research methods, has modern equipment and a highly qualified professional staff. These features ensure the reliability of the work the institute conducts. ::

Instytut Nafty i Gazu Lubicz 25A 31-503 Kraków Phone +48 12 421 00 33 Fax: +48 12 430 38 85 E-mail: office@inig.pl

Innovation

Yet another supercomputer? Not quite...

The IT support for the nuclear energy industry and science at the National Centre for Nuclear Research.

Wojciech Wiślicki

Computing centres of high processing performance represent today by far more than just reinforcement tools for science, research or modern industry. In some specific areas, like nuclear industry, powerful data and analysis tools, hand in glove with qualified personnel, are indispensable guarantee for success and security. The latter became the highest-priority issue in nuclear programs where even the utmost standards of security are sometimes hardly enough to calm down the politics and the public. Świerk Computing Centre (CIŚ), being currently under construction at the National Centre for Nuclear Research, located in Świerk near Warsaw, is designed to meet the challenge of the Polish program of nuclear power plants. CIŚ is a high-performance computing and networking centre, financially supported by the European structural funds and Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. With a budget of EUR25 million, it aims to back pure science, applied research and development and, at its later stage, industrial data processing.

Preferred application domains are the power industry, including nuclear engineering, security and hazard management and energy distribution.

Large computational power, bandwidth and reliability are necessary at any modern

centre, but what really matters here at CIŚ, are the specific and unique knowledge, dedicated codes and experience in using them. Thanks to collaboration with nuclear safety organizations from around the world, the Centre’s groups assemble computer codes that make it possible to model processes occurring in nuclear installations, as well as the operation of devices and subsystems of nuclear power plants even in the most extreme conditions.

Computer scientists and analysts from CIŚ already today learn to operate programs obtained, among others, from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna.

Putting the computing cluster in operation, which is now taking place for the first 20 Tflops and is going to multiply by an order of magnitude in next years, allows the administrators to learn to manage the operation of the infrastructure and user activities. Users from analysis teams will be able to run and test their applications in conditions close to the target ones. Another important objective of CIŚ is to perform simulations of the transport and dispersion of chemical pollutants in the atmosphere, water and soil, and the analysis of radiological and terrorist hazards.

The Centre also provides a range of tools and an environment for running user’s own applications. Computer scientists from the Centre collaborate with users in creating dedicated algorithmic solutions. It will be possible to use them in many fields, as e.g. in ongoing analyses in subatomic physics, molecular physics, thermal flow dynamics, free-electron lasers or multi-agent games. The computing powers and the installed software will make it possible, among others, to optimize the construction and load of energy grids and networks, and to optimize investment decisions on markets, especially those related to energy. With this last issue in view, a group of complex systems develops applications devoted to modelling and analysing energy networks from both the technical and economic point of view, and in their junction with

energy market. A dedicated software package, useful for modelling flow dynamics, for example in technical devices but also in natural and urban environment, particularly for forecasting the spread of contamination, is installed already on the test infrastructure. High computing powers will also allow complex statistical analyses, e.g. Bayesian methods of verification of scientific hypotheses in physics, environmental science and astrophysics.

CIŚ will provide its computing powers and services also for other scientific institutions and interested business entities.

The Centre has a redundant and highbandwidth, scalable network connectivity and will serve as a grid computing node. In particular, when the data volume becomes large, research groups could setup their own grid services and virtual organizations in order to start data processing and sharing on the worldwide computing grid. The group has a long-standing experience in high-energy particle physics experiments and data processing from the Large Hadron Collider and other accelerators at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, and elsewhere. This type of remote data processing is a must in open, academic-like scientific research where huge data volumes have to be processed in a distributed way and be easily accessible everywhere by hundreds of collaborating scientists. However, for more touchy data used by industry or government, data of commercial value or national security importance, open processing is not acceptable. For such data, a dedicated infrastructure with enhanced security level is designed at CIŚ and is going to be a unique feature of the Centre. ::

The author is professor of physics and project director of the Świerk Computing Centre at the National Centre for Nuclear Research CIŚ project webpage: http://www.cis.gov.pl

Project co-financed by European Union via European Regional Development Fund

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Innovation

Betting on innovation Polish Market talks with Tadeusz Ferenc, the Mayor of Rzeszów.

The promo slogan of Rzeszów is “Capital of Innovation”. It is a very ambitious claim...

Indeed, people should set ambitious goals for themselves. Today innovation is not science-fiction but technological advancements that are in short supply. Innovation is the area where the worlds of science, economy, entrepreneurship as well as politics and local governments should cooperate to work out and implement advanced mechanisms of development. It is innovation that creates new jobs and new technologies, boosts the quality of education and widens the application of knowledge.

The slogan is much more than a catchphrase for marketing purposes. It was not created by bureaucrats for bureaucrats. It was created for the scientific and business communities of Rzeszów, and other stakeholders in the city and the area. This is them who are supposed to implement innovation.

Our slogan also reflects our care for the development of Rzeszów as a buzzing academic and tech center. Its potential is comprised of the academic teachers and the 60,000-strong student community who are open to the challenges of the present day and who are striving for success when it comes to new technologies and management techniques.

Are there any achievements when it comes to innovations?

The Rzeszów brand is meant to be a role model for how the city can utilize innovation for the benefit of its economy, culture, science and other critical areas. It is universally acknowledged in Reszów that investment projects in human capital, which are based on technologies and innovations, are the most valuable type of investments because at the end of the day they create competitive advantages for the local economy. The best examples of innovative projects are, among others the Aviation Valley association which already comprises 90 companies in the

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region who cooperate with the world’s largest companies in the aircraft industry and utilize the most modern technologies and production methods.

Another example of an innovative investment is the Podkarpacki IT cluster which specializes in the development of modern information technologies.

When it comes to helping new companies grow, a good example of an innovative investment is Academic Pre-Incubator of Rzeszów University of Technology. It links several companies and labs. It helps students, university graduates and young scientists start up their own innovative businesses.

In turn, the Podkarpacki Park of Science and Technology AEROPOLIS is currently one of the most attractive places to investors in southeastern Poland. Companies in the park can tap into the potential of the local university and scientific centers. The park, located in the vicinity of the

Rzeszow-Jasionka airport, is home to such companies as Borg Warner, Goodrich, MTU, VAC Aero and ­OPTeam.

There is also Regional Center of Production Technology Transfers which has at its disposal the most modern manufacturing equipment which will help train highly qualified manufacturing personnel who will be able to operate, for instance, such complex machinery as digital lathes.

Of course Rzeszów has made big investments in Internet infrastructure.

So far half of the city area is covered by wireless broadband access which is available for internet users for free.

Rzeszów also utilizes wireless technologies for city monitoring and traffic lights control.

Innovative thinking and high technology is present when you look at the Rzeszów Municipal Information Points available in retail chains Real and E. Leclerc, and the Citizen Service Center which is open 24-7 at the Millenium Hall shopping and cultural center.

Innovative economy needs qualified personnel. How can investors tap into such workforce in your region, Podkarpacie?

We have a lot of highly qualified workers because of our tradition in the aviation industry. We put a lot of expectation in young people - this is our great advantage. But there are some 60,000 higher education students in Rzeszów in 60 different specialities.

Another 40,000 students attend other schools. I have to say, however, that the largest employers in Rzeszow have noticed the problem of the lack of qualified workforce supply. They sign contracts with high schools in the region offering internship programs, additional training and future employment.

They also cooperate with the Rzeszów University of Technology to get technical people. So apart from the fact that the availability of a qualified workforce in Rzeszów is one of the highest in the country, as evidenced by many different investor reports, it is also important to remember that salaries in the region are among the lowest across the country. ::

Innovation

Asseco to make life easier in Silesia Asseco Poland has undertaken to create a modern Public Services Card. This is a unique project on a European scale. Polish Market talks to Dominik Herberholz of the Infrastructure Department at Asseco Poland SA.

Asseco Poland has been awarded the contract for the development of the Silesian Public Services Card. What does this mean for the company?

We are happy to have an opportunity to carry out another important project for a local government. Being able to enter onto the market for intelligent systems for public transport is especially important for us. I am convinced we will prove again that Asseco can use its extensive expertise in information and telecommunications technologies so as to make life easier for residents of Silesia.

Why did Asseco Poland decide to take part in the tender for the Silesian Public Services Card?

We are always eager to undertake such innovative projects and to offer our knowledge and skills wherever a good project needs support from information technology. In this case, it was the scale of the challenge that attracted our special interest, unusual in terms of the number of residents it covers and the versatility of the device they will get. First, it should be stressed that the project undertaken by the Municipal Transport Association of the Upper Silesian Industrial District is unique on a European scale. I have not heard of another modern transport system solution of this kind for a whole region. Second, the electronic card the residents of the Silesian conurbation will receive will be capable to perform multiple functions. It will serve as a ticket, payment card and electronic signature carrier, with a capability to add more functions in the future.

BRE Bank is Asseco Poland’s partner on the project. Why has the company set up the consortium with the bank?

The contract for the Silesian Public Services Card involves not only the delivery and installation of devices but also handling the electronic money system complete with online payments for several years. This requires issuing a modern electronic card as an information carrier and a payment tool. It is clear then that a bank was an indispensable partner

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on this project. We have found a reliable partner in BRE Bank, a partner with vast experience and a very competent team of specialists.

We will be jointly handling electronic money transactions in Silesia, creating the Silesian Public Services Card system and expanding its capabilities.

What tasks is Asseco Poland responsible for on this project?

In the first stage, Asseco will develop two large data processing centers necessary for the electronic ticket system. It is also our responsibility to deliver the system and put it into operation. The system will be installed on 1,300 vehicles used in Silesia to provide public transport services for the Municipal Transport Association. We will provide 109 ticket machines, 223 parking meters and 1,200 topup terminals to be placed in selected locations of the Silesian conurbation. We will also deliver the most important part of the Silesian Public Services Card system - the software to manage the whole system. The biggest challenge will be the integration of the system in more than 10 cities. And this is Asseco’s most valuable asset – we know better than others how to carry out complex IT projects, which require integrating many distributed IT systems and devices and having expertise in many

different technologies and professional skills needed to carry out such projects.

What deserves special attention in the company’s portfolio?

Asseco Group is the largest Polish-owned software producer and one of the 10 largest software producers in Europe. It is a group of a few dozen software companies operating in most European countries, Israel, the United States, Japan and Canada. We employ a total of 13,500 people, around 4,500 of them in Poland. I am talking about it because Asseco’s portfolio is really extensive. The largest public institutions in Poland use our software as do important businesses operating in various sectors – banks, insurers, energy companies, manufacturers and transport companies.

One of the more interesting projects we will be working on in 2012 is the Quality Control System for Hydrological and Meteorological Measurements and Hydrological Forecasts for the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management. The system is important for flood safety throughout Poland. It will contribute to improving the quality of hydrological forecasts and streamline their distribution.

Does Asseco have any experience in projects for the local government sector?

Local governments have for many years used our solutions. I would like to mention just a few such projects, which are the most important now. In 2011 we built Poland’s largest Municipal Broadband Network for the northern city of Elbląg. Schools, kindergartens, day care centers, libraries and many other institutions controlled by the local government are connected to the 120-kilometer fiber optic network. We also delivered an electronic ticket system for the northern city of Tczew.

In 2012 Asseco Poland will build network infrastructure for the Regional Medical Information System in Łódzkie province. The system will connect all healthcare establishments controlled by the province government. Patients will gain easier access to medical services while the management of hospitals will become more efficient.

Another project I should mention is the one carried out by the Otago company, which has operated as part of Asseco Group since 2009. The company has developed and owns the Integrated Support System for City and Commune Management - Otago System.

The system is now used by 52 municipalities.

Among the customers are almost all large

Innovation cities in Poland, including Warsaw, Gdańsk, Kraków, Łódź, Wrocław, Szczecin and Bydgoszcz, as well as medium-sized cities like Zabrze, Toruń, Ruda Śląska, Rzeszów, Nowy Dwór Mazowiecki, Starogard Gdański, Piaseczno, Skierniewice, Łowicz and Piła. The municipality of Zabrze, which has been Otago’s customer for many years, is the winner of the Złota@2011 competition in the large cities category. The municipality received the award at the 15th Cities on the Internet conference for its highly developed e-administration. The jury also assessed the quality and usefulness of online services and services provided via e-mail. The company has recently expanded the functionality of the Otago System by adding to it the Educational Platform, which is used by 4,500 schools in over 20 cities. The Educational Platform provides applications for enrollment for schools of different levels (including kindergartens), electronic class registers, student data management, attendance analysis, equipment inventories, issuing certificates and student cards, calculating and paying out student grants, managing the organization of educational establishments and communication between the school and parents and between the school and authorities.

The Silesian Public Services Card system is the largest project of this kind in Poland, comparable with the systems already in place in London, Singapore and Hong Kong. The electronic card that the residents of the Silesian conurbation will get will serve as a ticket, payment card and electronic signature carrier at the same time, with the capability to add more functions in the future. In practice, this means that a single card will be needed to pay for public transport, parking and admission to museums, and to make payments in municipal offices. ::

What influence, in your view, will the Silesian Public Services Card have on the life of residents in the cities which have joined the system?

It can be expected that, as has been the case with the cities which have implemented smaller-scale ticket projects, Silesia’s residents will quickly approve of the card as a convenient form of ticket for urban transport. The ability to use the card to pay for admission to public buildings and facilities, to sign a document or take care of formalities with municipal offices are additional advantages that the card users will certainly appreciate. But how the residents will assess the new solution depends to a large extent on the Municipal Transport Association, which will manage the system. We will deliver a modern tool with much larger

capabilities than required under the contract so we hope that the project will be developing at a fast pace.

Which function of the Silesian Public Services Card is the most important in your view?

One cannot say that one of the functions is the most important. At first, the card will certainly gain popularity as a public transport ticket. I am convinced that the Silesian Public Services Card will be the first tool in the hands of the region’s residents to be so versatile and well protected. What the card holds is impossible to lose. The solution is so attractive that, as far as we know, neighboring cities are already interested in joining the system. It can be expected then that the system will be applied throughout Silesia. :: ADVERTISEMENT

3-4 /2012 :: polish market :: 47

Innovation

Jockeying for the position Polish IT and ICT entrepreneurs have to learn how to sell their innovative products abroad.

Adam Koszlajda, PwC Technology Leader The World Intellectual Property Report 2011 shows that Poland invests about 7% of its gross domestic product in knowledge. The top 3 countries, Israel, South Korea and the US invest about 12-10% of GDP, whereas the three least innovation focused countries, Thailand, Panama and Pakistan invest about 4-3% of GDP. In turn, Poland invests some 7% of GDP in knowledge, which positions the country in the middle of the chart. It may seem a relatively good result. However, the issue is the nature of the investments. In comparison with other countries Poland invests a relatively small share of money in R&D—just about 9%, while most of the money is spent on new machinery, equipment and software. The details show that Poland is still not a source of innovation, but is rather focused on consuming the innovations created elswhere.

producing high-accessible applications for telephone exchange. At the moment it is an important member of GENIVI Alliance, whose task is to implement and adapt platform-based, open software technology which supports what they call Machine-2-Machine communication. The company also leads the Ericpol Innovation Pathway, annual meetings of innovative Polish ICT firms. Ericpol is currently a 48th position in IDG TOP 200 index.

The other interesting example of an innovative company in the telecommunications sector is Psiloc. The company is a Nokia. OEM partner and their application, WorldTraveler is used by 9.5 million clients around the world.

Great salespeople in demand

Brain drain Polish economy is smoothly transitioning from the stage of early capitalism whereby R&D attracted a very limited scope of investments, to a more developed capitalism where some truly innovative projects began to appear. Nevertheless, the imports from international corporations, which create their R&D, shared service and IT Process Outsourcing (IPO) centers in Poland are the main sources of innovation for the country. According to Konrad Świrski from the Warsaw University of Technology, Poland is now becoming an important place as a provider of advanced services. It must be noticed, however, that innovations and knowledge created in Poland are mostly monetized by international corporations and not by the Polish ones. For example, Polish programmers are among world’s best which was often highlighted thanks to such competitions like Top Coder, ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest or Imagine Cup. Unfortunately, having won a competition or two, the same programmers often start working abroad or in local R&D centers created by Google in Cracow, IBM and NokiaSiemens in Wrocław, Intel in Gdańsk and Samsung in Warsaw. Soon Facebook is rumored to be creating its own R&D center in Poland too.

Trying on their own Of course, there are also Polish IT companies, which use the brain power of their engineers, but just a few of them are capable to

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monetize their innovation. Probably each IT company claims that innovation is an important part of their business, but the reality is much murkier. Truly innovative companies are not the ones spending big percentage of their income on R&D centers or those in cooperation with universities or those winning innovation awards. Innovative companies are those which provide innovative services and solutions that are recognized worldwide. Innovative means something which is not just a copy or a Polish version of a product available abroad.

There are just a few companies, which create and provide services or products fulfilling those criteria. What is more, it seems that there are at least two specialties, where Polish companies have become recognized worldwide as truly innovative: the gaming industry and telecommunication applications.

Two in the lead A lot of people know that the Witcher game has been created by CD Project Red company.

Some people also know that both series of the game have been sold in over 3 million copies worldwide, but much fewer people know that another game, Painkiller has been created

by People Can Fly, a Polish software development company based in Warsaw.

Telecommunications seems to be another Polish specialty with two strong market players. Ericpol started as software house

Of course, there are many more Polish innovative companies like IVONA Software, creators of software for speech synthesis, but right now most of the Polish IT companies have a crucial challenge of providing their innovative services and products abroad. The ones, which will be able to export some part of it, have a bright future. This is the area, where Poland still has a lot to do, as there is a constant problem with changing brilliant, virtual ideas into real money.

The first steps have already been taken and there is an increasing number of startups, venture capitals and business angels appearing on the Polish market. Some of them are very formal, like MCI Management, but there are also some less formal events like bar-camps, Grill IT or Bootstrap where IT guys meet and exchange their experiences. There are also other interesting initiatives, which are not formal, but give real business opportunities—Startup School led

by Rafał Agnieszczak, the owner of fotka.pl portal having 6 million users and Warsaw Pitch Rally helping startups to find investors.

Thanks to such initiatives, Waldemar Pawlak, Minister of Economy, may present Polish promotion in IT Industry Competitiveness Index 2011. Poland has been promoted on the index from 35th place in 2009 to 30th place in 2011. Nevertheless, Poland is ranked 18th among 24 EU countries measured by the index. It is hard to say if it is a good score. It is even harder to identify the reason of this. Politicians’ efforts, public investments or rather Polish brain power turned into successful commercial projects. ::

Innovation

Ensuring high-speed and secure communications in a large company Zdzisław Nowak, president of EXATEL SA

is through virtual tunnels of the backbone network, which excludes the risk of an attack that could lead to data loss, replacement or theft.

Optimum solution EXATEL is one of the largest sup­ pliers of VPN MPLS services in Poland.

Its customers have an opportunity to use six traffic classes or classes of their own choice adjusted to their data transmission requirements. EXATEL’s experienced specialists offer cus­ tomers advice in this public adminis­ tration respect. The customer may also decide about what percentage of the bandwidth is to be assigned to individual traffic classes. :: The basic service, called Best Effort, uses one traffic class and is dedicated to standard data transmission, with the lowest priority, like for example e-mail, WWW, FTP. The global net offers a new communications and data sharing potential but inadequate security may be responsible for many serious risks or even financial losses. This is why one of the most important tasks in a large company with many branches is to ensure a high le­ vel of data transmission security and remote and secure access to the corporate network for all mobile workers.

Processes and data sharing in a tele­ communications network connecting individual corporate branches have to be handled in a continuous, lag-free and secure manner.

The VPN (Virtual Private Network) service, supported by MPLS (MultiProtocol Label Switching) technology, which becomes increasingly popular among companies that have offices in at least a few locations in one or more countries, meets these requirements.

Transmission security The important advantage of the VPN MPLS service provided by EXATEL is security, with a company’s data being completely isolated from the public Internet and protected against access by unauthorized persons. Transmission

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:: The VoIP class, which ensures real-time voice transmission with the highest priority, is intended for customers interested in using voice connections in IP technology and with quality comparable to traditional telephone connections. :: The Video class is intended for video­ conferencing and video streaming users. The remaining three Business classes give the customers the opportunity to use diverse specialist business applications, with guarantees of quality parameters necessary for their efficient operation. Classes Business 1, Business 2 and Business 3, guarantee a separate bandwidth for critical business data, including dedicated CRM, dedicated ERP and dedicated SAP. :: The VPN MPLS service comprising all the six traffic classes enables the transmission of differential data and applications both in real time and with appropriate prio­ rities assigned to the applications to ensure their optimum treatment in the IP MPLS network.

Transmission quality and reliability Service reliability is an important requirement. In order to ensure the qua­ lity and reliability parameters as defined by the service level agreement (SLA), EXATEL has implemented a proactive monitoring system. It gives the customer the certainty that service qua­ lity is constantly monitored by the Network Management Center and that any problems, if detected, will be immedia­ tely dealt with.

Telecom cost optimization The VPN service offers its users economic benefits and streamlines their information flow processes. In particular, it cuts telephone expenses because all connections between locations connected to the VPN network are free of charge. Additionally, VPN is a complete service managed by a telecom operator, who is responsible for all activities connected with its operation. As a result, the user can significantly reduce costs involved in building and maintaining an in-house network because the operator will take care of all issues associated with its design, configuration and management. The service gives Customers possibility to network selfmanagement, which mainly benefit the largest companies, that have their own IT Departments.

Global range An important advantage of EXATEL’s services is their global range. The ope­ rator manages Poland’s most modern fiber-optic network, which is 20,000 kilometers long. Additionally, EXATEL is a strategic partner of the BT Alliance programme, that enables access to infrastructure in more than 170 countries. EXATEL has developed over 160 VPN implementations for large corporations and public administration, including the National Bank of Poland, PKO Bank Polski SA, Raiffeisen Bank Polska SA, National Health Fund, Office of Electronic Communications, Mini­ stry of Finance, Ministry of Justice, Agency for Restructuring and Mo­ dernization of Agriculture and Ciech Group. ::

Economy

Economic Monitor

March 2012

Polish economy is still robust although some worrying signals appear on the horizon.

Jan Mazurek Fiscal stability pact

Chief analyst, Towarzystwo Funduszy Inwestycyjnych SA

Poland has signed the fiscal stability pact whereby the country is obliged to adjust to the highest standards of fiscal prudence. This is important news.

Reckless management of incomes and expenditures led many European countries to bringing their financial systems to the brink of bankruptcy.

While nobody seems to have a feasible solution how to stop the spiraling debt it is a good idea for Poland to have taken a good look at the problem and sign the pact.

Poland is far away from such troubles as now drain the financial systems of Greece, Italy, Portugal or Spain. The debt of the public finance sector is below 55% of the country’s GDP, which many economists call a relatively safe level.

Stability pact implications By the end of 2011 the Polish central government debt reached PLN 771 billion. With this some experts say that Poland, a country which is not a part of the eurozone, needn’t have signed the fiscal stability pact. While the pact aims to give a new lease of life to the common currency, the euro, and is designed for the members of the eurozone, it has a set of financial penalties for the signatories who will not comply with it. Poland can be one of them if it does not keep its budget deficit below 3% of the country’s GDP. It seems that a strict budgetary discipline cannot be Poland’s virtue.

Poland has many populists in parliamentary politics and keeping them constrained about the state’s expenditures is a good thing. More so as Poland’s foreign currency reserves amounted to USD 102 billion by the end of F ­ ebruary. Some 5% of them were in gold.

as those in Poland. First off, Poland’s GDP growth in 2011 reached 4.3%.

The growth was fueled mainly by internal demand, especially in Q4 2011.

According to the European Commission, Poland’s GDP growth this year will reach 2.5%. This forecast is in sync with what Poland’s government estimates. Although lower than in 2011, the economic growth of Poland, if it turns out to be 2.5% GDP may be the highest in the European Union.

The average GDP growth rate for all EU countries is forecast at 0% this year; eurozone members, in turn, are forecast to have a negative growth of 0.3% GDP.

Retail sales surge The January retail sales grew by 14.3% as compared to the January 2011 results. The money supply in February in broad sense (M3) grew by 12.56% while the annual inflation rate rose from 4.1% in January to 4.3% in February. Inflation is still way above the inflation target and budget feasibility targets. At its March session, the Monetary Policy Council decided to keep the interest rates on the same level as before. President of Poland’s central bank, Marek Belka, said he rules out interest rate, cuts in the next months.

Salaries rise While it may dismay many employees, in February 2011 to February 2012 there was a 4.3% rise in salaries. The highest rise took place in January when annual bonuses were paid. With this employers tried to pay more to their staffs to avoid paying more in accident insurance, an obligatory payment whose amount depends on the amount of money paid as salary to employees. A rise in the accident insurance is expected to take place in April.

Could have been worse While Poland’s economic situation does not let the country’s finance minister sleep peacefully, many Western countries could only wish their economic problems were such

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Worrying signals While most economic indicators for Poland are all right there are some that are not so good. The Purchasing Managers Index, which reflects the

condition of the industry, is one of them. The index dropped significantly in February and now stands at the border between recession and growth.

Unemployment still a problem For years Poland has been struggling with the problem of unemployment.

According to the forecasts, the February unemployment rate grew to 13.5% from 13.2% a month earlier. Employers find it more difficult to hire new people as the non-salary financial burden of employment is already huge and growing. Meanwhile, the government has opted for extending the work age to 67 years which will make it even harder for young people out of work to find a new job. Experts who are critical about the new regulation argue that older workers aged 6567 years will be more prone to take sick leaves and the overall productivity rate in this new age group of employers will be very low. Today some 2.1 million people are out of work— if they had jobs the economy of the country would have gotten a big boost.

Minerals at stake Polish parliament has passed a law which imposes a new tax on the extraction of silver and cooper. According to government estimates, the new tax will add PLN 2.2 billion to the government revenue side.

Many experts, however, see the new tax as controversial. Because of it the national extractor of silver and copper, KGHM, will see its revenue drop. KGHM is a public company and a compressed revenue means lower dividends for the company’s shareholders. KGHM’s net profit for 2011 reached PLN 11.3 billion. Among the company’s acquisitions last year is Quadra, a Canadian producer of copper and other rare metals with extraction sites in North and South Americas. KGHM, under president Herbert Wirth, plans new acquisitions this year and the new tax may significantly numb the company’s appetite for profitable investments. ::

“INVEST-PARK” CENTER

“INVEST-PARK” CENTER THE OFFICE BUILDING DESIGNED FOR A SERVICE AND CONFERENCE CENTER WSSE ”INVEST – PARK” is the most modern investment in the city of Wałbrzych: total surface area of the office building: 5770 m2, total usable area for rent: 3461.64 m2, conference room surface area: 331.43 m2, office space for rent with a possibility of applying for an economic activity permit within the Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone (WSEZ), which authorizes for using Public Aid. 100 parking places.

The main assumption of the project is to provide leaseholders with the possibility of functional and efficient space arrangement. The configuration and division of the space within the same floor is unrestricted: advanced telecommunication solutions; floors have a perfect access to natural light and they have an open plan, which enables easy and functional space arrangement; highest quality of interior decorations and equipment, implemented according to the present norms of environment protection; modern heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems with a possibility of individual set-up; on the second and third floor open-space area will be available – it is an ideal spot for a service center (2nd floor 1,212,14m2 and 3rd floor 1,083.65m2);

At the current stage of construction work, there is a possibility of arrangement of the rooms system according to the needs of a Leaseholder.

September 2012 is the planned time of the investment completion and commissioning.

ADDITIONAL GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE ZONE: We also encourage you to invest in the area of the Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone “Invest-Park” Sp. z o.o.

The Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone “INVEST – PARK” is one of the most efficiently operating among 14 industrial zones in Poland. It covers the total area of 2073.72 ha and comprises of 41 Sub-zones. WSSE has over 800 hectares of unused investment areas.

Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone “INVEST – PARK” Sp. z o.o.

21 Uczniowska Street, 58-306 Wałbrzych, POLAND Mobile: +48 (74) 664 91 64, 664 91 63, Fax: +48 (74) 664 91 62 E-mail: invest@invest-park.com.pl w w w. i n v e s t- p a r k . c o m . p l

SEZ Monitor granted an investment permit in 2012

by Special Economic Zone in Kamienna Góra. With the go ahead from the zone BDN will invest PLN 40 million in a new process line. Among the provisions is that the company will keep the minimum of 410 jobs

by June 2018.

Hydraulic equipment producer to invest PLN 24m

Zielona Budka builds extension in Europark Mielec Ice cream brand Zielona Budka boosts the production capacity of its facility (picture above) in Europark Mielec Special Economic Zone by half. The over PLN 24 million investment will not only increase the output of ice cream but will also enable the company to produce new types of ice cream.

“With the extension of our production plant we will open a new chapter in our company’s history,” said Janusz Szwaracki, company’s board member. “The extension of the operation

and production space by over 2,000 square meters will let us spread our wings,” he said in a press statement.

Szwaracki also said that in the summer time—the peak production period—some 100 additional jobs will be maintained thanks to the extension.

Zielona Budka made its first investment in Europark Mielec in 1998. In 2000 the factory, which extended at over 6,500 square meters, was fully-operational.

Kraków Techno Park grows IT Park Kraków Technology Park has finished phase one of the construction of its offshoot, Małopolska IT Park (picture below).

Along with presenting the office offer, the park has launched a promo campaign targeting future tenants.

Weber-Hydraulika plans to invest PLN 24 million in subzone Nowogrodziec, a part of Kamienna Góra SEZ. The company specializes in hydraulic systems for specialty equipment such as used by fire brigades and rescue teams.

The company pledged to maintain at least 204 jobs at its Nowogrodziec plant by the end of 2019.

Furniture producer to invest PLN 67m German furniture producer Klaus Borne will invest PLN 67.5 million in its production plant in Gorzów Wielkopolski, in Kostrzyn-Słubice SEZ. The company is obliged to create at least 50 new jobs at the plant.

Guri Vital invests PLN 5m in Kostrzyn-Słubice SEZ

„Our goal is to offer special conditions for people who have ideas for business in the ICT sector,” said the company in a press statement.

Pharmaceutical company Guri Vital plans to build a diet supplement factory in Kostrzyn, in Kostrzyn-Słubice SEZ. The company will invest PLN 5 million.

BDN extends operations in Kamien­na Góra SEZ

Paper packaging company to invest PLN 16m

BDN, a high-tech printing company, was the first foreign investor to be

Stenqvist Poland, producer of paper packaging for food, has received its first go-ahead from the KosztrzynSłubice SEZ. The company will invest PLN 16 million in a production plant in Kostrzyn.

Małopolska SEZs at ICT CeBIT 2012 Representatives of the Krakow Technology Park and Centrum Business in Małopolska took part in ICT CeNIT 2012. The stands of the two high-tech hubs were parts of the Polish stand at the fairs sponsored by the Ministry of Economy.

Promotional materials of the two IT hubs included a multi-media catalog featuring 44 ICT companies in the Małopolska region. ::

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over 32.000 places of employment over 160 investors from all over the world

The Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone www.invest-park.com.pl Why is it worth to invest in the Wałbrzych Special Economic Zone: System of tax exemptions – income tax exemptions – real estate tax exemptions Rich offer of the investment grounds – developed communication network – full and complete accessibility to the technical infrastructure – convenient geographical location in the vicinity of the Czech Republic and Germany

We invite you heartily to invest in the WSEZ „INVEST-PARK” We would like to entourage you to acquaint yourself with our offer of the WSEZ „INVEST-PARK” investment grounds on www.invest-park.com.pl

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WSSE “INVEST - PARK” Sp. z o.o. ul. Uczniowska 21 58-306 Wałbrzych Tel. +48 (74) 664 91 64, 664 91 63, Fax + 48 (74) 664 91 62 e-mail: invest@invest-park.com.pl http://www.invest-park.com.pl

Innovation

HANNOVER MESSE 2012: 23 – 27 APRIL 2012

“Greentelligence” keynote theme highly prominent across all display categories

By adopting “greentelligence” as its keynote theme, HANNOVER MESSE 2012 has put the spotlight squarely on green technologies as a central growth driver for industry. Manufacturers the world over are facing an enormous challenge. To remain competitive in the long term, their products and processes have to be sustainable, environmentally friendly and efficient.

HANNOVER MESSE 2012, which runs from 23 to 27 April, will help them rise to this challenge by providing them with a technology platform that gives them an unparalleled overview of all the latest industrial innovations designed to facilitate sustainable business development. Groundbreaking solutions will be on show in all major display categories, from automation, energy technologies, industrial supply and subcontracting services through to R&D. HANNOVER MESSE 2012 will also see the premiere of IndustrialGreenTec. This latest addition to HANNOVER MESSE’s line-up of flagship

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shows will present the full range of environmental technologies along multiple industrial value chains. Key themes at IndustrialGreenTec will include recycling and environmentally friendly waste disposal; water, soil and noise protection technologies; methods for lowering air pollution; approaches to the efficient use of renewable energy and renewable materials; and environmental services, from consulting through to certification.

Following its debut at HANNOVER MESSE 2011, which was well received by visitors and exhibitors alike, the Metropolitan Solutions exhibition area will be back in 2012 with an expanded format. Globalization, climate change and the increasing rate of urbanization are posing huge challenges for cities and major urban centers around the world. The challenges can only be addressed by expanding and modernizing infrastructure. According to the experts, the most critical areas include energy, water/waste water and mobility systems as well as

climate protection. State-of-the-art solutions in all of these areas will be presented by the companies participating in this year’s Metropolitan Solutions showcase.

Comprising eight flagship shows, HANNOVER MESSE 2012 is a worldunique industrial technology fair that is truly international and provides unparalleled coverage of all key industries. It is a magnet for trade visitors from all around the world. In addition, each year over 100 high-ranking international political and business delegations come to Hannover to keep abreast of the latest trends and solutions. “HANNOVER MESSE provides a window on the future of the world’s industries. No other event presents as many groundbreaking innovations and integrated solutions,” explained von Fritsch.

The People’s Republic of China will be the official Partner Country of HANNOVER MESSE 2012. The partnership was formalized in an agreement signed by Dr. Philipp Rösler, Germany’s Federal Minister of Economics and Technology, and Miao Wei, China’s Minister of Industry and Information Technology, during the China-Germany inter-government consultations that were held in Berlin in June 2011.

Wolfram von Fritsch: “We are delighted to have China at our side as Partner Country at HANNOVER MESSE 2012.

We are confident that this partnership will be a boon to Sino-German trade relations and will be a major drawcard for exhibitors and trade visitors from around the globe. The partnership gives both exhibitors and visitors a unique opportunity to build their import and export business and to strengthen their commercial and R&D ties with China.”

As part of its Partner Country showcase, the Chinese government is planning to run displays on its major energy efficiency projects, focusing on electric generation, intelligent energy networks and systems, and environmentally-friendly mobility ­solutions. ::

Innovation

Focus on sustainability Match & Meet is a new service offered at the Hannover Messe industrial trade fairs. It helps in establishing international business contacts and arranging meetings.

Business expansion depends to a large extent on the ability to build and maintain relations with the right business partners. If you are looking for new customers, suppliers, knowhow or capital, or if you want to expand you business contacts we recommend you Match & Meet, a new service offered by Deutsche Messe, the organizer of the Hannover Messe fairs. Match & Meet is a package of services making it easier for the clients to establish international business contacts and set the optimum dates for meetings at the fairs. The basic part of the Match & Meet package is a huge database with business contacts provided with tools to analyze business profiles. It enables matching suppliers of IT solutions of various kind with people looking for these solutions. Thanks to the service, clients have an opportunity to contact potential business partners even before

the beginning of a Hannover Messe fair to meet them in person during the fair.

The Match & Meet package is composed of several modules providing different capabilities, from free registration with the database to online access to the full database for a year to meetings with prospective business partners organized with full service by the Match & Meet staff. Clients may adjust

China is the official HANNOVER MESSE 2012 Partner Country

the modules to suit their needs and pay only for what they really require.

New flagship show: IndustrialGreenTec

Basic modules of the Match & Meet package: :: F ree registration and presence in the contact search engine - Match & Meet REGISTRATION, :: Searching for and finding business partners, establishing business contacts - Match & Meet ONLINE, :: Finding business partners and arranging meetings at fairs – Match & Meet ONSITE, :: Meetings with potential business partners – Match & Meet MEETING SEVICES. The Match & Meet DELEGATION PACKAGE is a special package intended for groups of several people who plan to visit the Hannover Messe together.

Apart from full organizational assistance from the Match & Meet staff, the package may include a guided tour of the fairgrounds and a special Gold Package with a Premium Pass Gold voucher to be used in the largest restaurant at the fairgrounds, Münchner Halle, transit from the airport to the fairgrounds and a tour of the city.

For more details contact Ewa Samkowska, Deutsche Messe representative in Poland; tel. 22 639 72 53, e-mail: info@hf-poland.com. :: 3-4 /2012 :: polish market :: 57

Innovation

Nickel Technology Park Poznań - your partner in growth Since the start of its operations as Poland’s first non-public technology park, Nickel Technology Park Poznań (NTPP) has offered its tenants the best conditions for current activity and expansion. It provides not only top-quality infrastructure to the companies operating in the park but first of all complete business services, which are constantly adjusted to meet the changing market requirements. The services the NTPP offers are designed to strengthen the competitive edge of its partners and optimize their operating expenses. Thanks to this kind of approach to the customer, more and more large companies are attracted to the park and start their operations there.

“Our corporation attaches great importance to the quality of locations where we open our factories and distribution centers,” says Albert Mokrzycki, director for regional sales at Royal Canin. “The choice of NTPP means to us not only modern office and warehouse space, which meets the exceptionally high requirements of our company, but first of all an

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opportunity to work with a partner open to our needs and taking care to constantly develop modern infrastructure and additional services, which make our current operations easier.

Since the beginning of 2011 NTPP has carried out another project designed to strengthen the biotech and life-science sector in the region of Wielkopolska. The Nickel Biocentrum building is to be handed over to tenants in the first half of 2012. It will provide modern space, with the optimum facilities for tenants and a package of specialist services.

What is Biocentrum? As Piotr Kwiatek, director for development at NTPP, says: “Biocentrum is a multidimensional structure.

The life-science sector requires combining many different elements. It means continuous contact between science and business and access to foreign partners, the great capacity to absorb knowledge and the need to develop fast.”

“Biocentrum attracts us with its specialist space and equipment complete with a package

of services dedicated to the development of the biotech business,” says Anna Krause, president of the PozLab company.

Operating for over five years now, Nickel Technology Park Poznań is not only an excellent location for expansion for large companies, like for example Royal Canin. It also caters for the needs of start-ups and professionals. It is for them that the virtual office service was added last autumn to the NTPP line. The virtual office service enables the customers to register their operations under the NTPP address and to use many services offered by NTPP without the need for their business to be physically present in the park. Additionally, NTPP customers have an opportunity to benefit from the Business Development Zone, which is dedicated to young innovative businesses. Space lease rates in the Business Development Zone are preferential and micro-enterprises can rent here a desk per hour. For more information see www.ntpp.pl. ::

Puławy

A place for a good start Puławy – the gateway of Eastern Europe – is one of most picturesque places of the Lublin region. Situated by the river Vistula with its magnificent views and venues for recreation the city is a perfect location for tourism. Complex development of the infrastructure realised in the last years, scientific background of five research institutes and the activity of the nitrogen plant Zakłady Azotowe “Puławy” SA makes us an attractive and prosperous investment and business centre.

Only this year on May 26th-27th we are opening three investments co-financed by the European Union funds – the Vistula boulevard and marina, the sports stadium and the Puławy Science-Technology Park.

The Vistula bank is a leisure-and-recreation venue important for the inhabitants integration. Historically it played a significant role in the city’s development making it a communication centre. The new marina and boulevard make use of the river’s natural values enabling recreation in a modern space which is harmonious with the natural world.

The sports stadium is a complex for football, swimming and athletics competitions. The venue complemented by an aquapark, a playground and a hostel is perfect for sports activities and recreation.

In the last years we modernized all our sports facilities, creating a welldeveloped base for amateurs – children and adults and sports clubs members. We are proud of the fact that the disabled inhabitants take active part in the city’s life, also using the sports base to develop their skills and integrate.

The newly opened Puławy Science-Technology Park was cofinanced with the means of the European Regional Development Fund. The total amount of the project is approximately PLN 77 million.

The scope of the project was complex preparation of two areas for the needs of the investors through foundation of the Puławy ScienceTechnology Park as well as preparation of road and infrastructure investments.

The addressees of the project are micro, small and medium enterprises, business-related institutions, higher education schools, science-and-research units, other entities supporting the region’s innovative development.

The Puławy Science-Technology Park consists of three wings reflecting a functional division into: »» Technological Incubator – a building designed for incubation activity of technology companies and a service activity within the scope of technology transfer; »» Entrepreneurship Centre – a building with a training function which will run activities directed at supporting entrepreneurship.

In this wing a reception, conference and training rooms will be located as well as other functions available for all the users; »» Technological Centre – a building designed for office and production areas rental for technological companies.

The foundation of the Puławy Science-Technology Park aims at creating conditions for running a business activity – development and diffusion of innovative undertakings. It already is a place of practical cooperation of science-and-research institutions, universities and production companies.

On the other hand newly established roads with equipment and accompanying infrastructure in the district provide vast investment locations with an efficient communication system.

The Puławy Science-Technology Park runs activity in the following fields: »» incubating enterprises starting activity, »» rental of office as well as laboratory and production space for developing companies, »» management of investment areas designed for technological companies in the phase of expansion, »» training, »» research services, »» services in the scope of technology transfer, »» business-related services.

To contact the Puławy Science-Technology Park and acknowledge its scope of activity please see www.ppn t.pu lawy .pl

Puławy City Hall 24 – 100 Puławy ul. Lubelska 5 tel. +48 81 880 45 34

or contact us at phone number

w w w.humanci ty. pl

+48 81 470 09 00 or +48 81 880 45 34

promocja@um.pulawy.pl

Advertorial

Central European biotech region – potential and knowledge to be explored is on the similar level of growth. There is no chance to promote and develop this sector in Central European countries separately. Joint actions are a guarantee of success, both in business and marketing. The first level of partnership is when the company starts to provide special services to other companies from the region. Although, this level has been reached, there is still much more to achieve.

Ten years ago, nobody thought that time will come in Poland for the development of modern biotechnology - the development based on the latest scientific achievements in biology and medicine which we observed in the last 3-4 years. In this period various companies including Mabion S.A., Celther sp. z o.o., Eurimplant S.A., Selvita, Blirt S.A. and Proteon Pharmaceuticals sp. z o.o. began their dynamic work. A characteristic feature of these companies is the fact that their work is concentrated on the implementation of innovative biotechnological products. Furthermore, these companies have expanded their R&D sections and employ prominent scientists not only from Poland but also from abroad.

One of the core catalyst of this process is BioForum - Central European Forum of Biotechnology and Innovative Biobusiness organized by Bio-Tech Consulting Ltd. This event is a great place not only to make new contacts among scientists and innovative biobusiness representatives, but it is also an opportunity to create a network amid Central European biotechnological companies. “We started in 2000, almost 12 years ago. At the beginning BioForum was some kind of a meeting platform for both scientists and businessmen, and this event was limited only to the Polish biotech community. Nowadays we are doing our utmost to build a really strong business network between biotechnology enterprises within the Central Europe region and the rest of the world. Attracting the most important entrepreneurs from the U.S.– the country with the biggest biotech market - is our essential critical mass. True potential resides in joint actions, so we are trying to connect businessmen from Central European countries.

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We have a shared history, similar experiences and we have to face the same problems.

If we cooperate we will be attractive for the world’s leading players from the biotechnological sector,” says Tadeusz Pietrucha, CEO of Bio-Tech Consulting.

Central Europe (CE) is an emerging biotech market, a small star among European regions. There are more or less 200 innovative biotech companies. Most of them established in the last 10 years. “What attracts U.S. companies to the CE region are interesting developments in its life sciences sector. Poland has always had a stellar reputation in basic science, particularly in chemistry, engineering, technology, pharmacology and analytical sciences. Now we’re seeing a larger number of R&D companies and early stage biotechs bringing some of this science to commercialization - and hoping to fill the pipeline needs of the larger pharma giants!”

Kate Gunning, Principal, BioVisability (US), comments on the situation in Poland.

It is generally known that there is no business without good personal contact with business partners. The main problem is that biotechnology is not as popular as other, often more profitable ventures. Finding a proper associate is difficult because the search area extends all over the world. BioForum is the place where everyone who is interested in doing business in the biotech sector and everyone who reckons that Central Europe is the right place to do it, can meet themselves. For the small companies from this region BioForum is the best solution to find appropriate bussines partners from the life science sector.

In Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia and other countries from the CE region the biotech sector

BioForum is a way to show the world the joint business potential of Central European countries. “Together we can reach for more.

I am sure that the biggest biotechnology enterprises are still looking for new technologies, fresh innovative ideas and thereby new partners or outsourcing providers. BioForum is the perfect place where they can find it and catch the opportunities hidden in Central Europe,” sums up Tadeusz Pietrucha.

“BioForum is also a place where new ideas are initiated. An example can be setting up the new Polish biotech company Lipopharm. My adventure with BioForum began in 2005. Due to the ability to meet and exchange experiences with other people who work in that branch, and also to making some prompt decisions, it had a great influence on setting up a company dealing with peptides research. I take part in BioForum every year. I come back from this event always with new ideas and valuable contacts with potential partners in the industry,” says Wojciech Kamysz, CEO of Lipopharm.

In the upcoming edition representatives of well renown brands: Abbott, Merck MSD and Sandoz take part. ::

11th Central European Forum of Biotechnology and Innovative BioEconomy is the biggest and most important international event for biotechnology in the region of Central Europe. It will take place 23-24 May, Brno, Czech Republic.

Polish Market is a media partner. w w w.cebioforum.com Contact: Edyta Wodzińska , +48 42 299 60 79 bioforum@bioforum.pl, w w w.cebioforum.com

Innovation

All eyes on Expochem The flagship fair of the chemical industry takes place for the fifth time

As many as 84 companies from Poland and abroad took part in EXPOCHEM 2012, the 5th International Chemical Industry Exhibition and International Conference trade fair that took place in Katowice from 29 February to 1 March. The participants represented different branches of the industry from core chemicals to petrochemicals, fertilizers, synthetic plastics, component suppliers and subcontractors of chemical companies.

The fair was prepared in cooperation with the Polish Chamber of Chemical Industry. Kondrad Jaskóła, President of Polimex-Mostostal presided over the program board of the fair.

Zygmunt Łaszczuk, Governor of Silesia, Michał Luty, Deputy Mayor of Katowice, Sławomir Majman, President of Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency, Wojciech Lubiewa-Wieleżyński, Chairman of Polish Chamber of Chemical Industry, and Tadeusz Donocik Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Katowice.

At the fair the Ukrainian Chemical Industry Chamber, the Board of the Warsaw Trade Fairs and the Western Pomerania Chemical Cluster Zielona Chemia signed a letter of intent to get engaged in a cooperation.

Special press conference Distinguished guests The grand opening of the fair was attended by Rafał Baniak, Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Treasury,

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At a press conference on the first day of the fair, at which present were all members of the Directors’ Board of ZA Puławy chemical company, the

company presented its financial results for the first half of the 2011/2012 accounting period.

Prizes for trade leaders companies A big point of the fair was the announcement of the winners of Grand Prix Expochem 2012. The winner of the award was Mezap, an expert in the construction and maintenance of industry equipment, for the technology of titan welding in pressurized equipment.

In turn, the winners of Gold Medals at the Expochem Invention and Innovation Competition, another showpiece contest at the fair, were Kraków University of Technology, Blachownia Institute of Heavy Organic Synthesis and Silesian University of Technology.

Silver Medals went to Kraków University of Technology, Silesian University of Technology and Industrial Chemistry Research Institute. Diplomas of Appreciation went to Kraków University of Technology and Silesian University of Technology. ::

Azoty Tarnów Capital Group is one of the key chemical sector holdings in the field of construction plastics, mineral fertilizers, OXO alcohols and plasticisers. Thanks to the effective implementation of its development strategy, Azoty Tarnów has become Europe’s third largest producer of nitro-chalk, the fifth leading producer of polyamides and OXO alcohols, as well as the second largest producer of plasticisers, while it remains Poland’s leading manufacturer of caprolactam, polyamides, plasticisers and OXO alcohols together with mineral fertilizers. Highly qualified staff, innovative management systems, an open information policy, dialogue with local communities and preservation of the environment – these are the attributes which undoubtedly set the group apart from the competition.

www.grupaazotytarnow.pl

Chemical industry

West Pomeranian Cluster Association “Green Chemistry” in Szczecin Jacek Drożdżal The West Pomeranian Cluster Association Green Chemistry, the first cluster of this kind in West Pomerania and in Poland, was set up in the northwestern city of Szczecin on September 18, 2007 as a joint initiative of Western Pomeranian companies operating in the chemical sector, universities and institutions active in the business environment. The aim of the joint activities pursued by the companies is to consolidate the sector, promote their brands and support each other in efforts to acquire funding for modernization and expansion. These efforts are coupled with basic and applied research conducted in conjunction with Szczecin and foreign universities.

The association is responsible as a coordinator for the exchange of information, knowledge and experience among its members and the promotion of the best investment and product solutions. Thanks to specialist training sessions, trade news and the exchange of experience with regions in Germany, Ukraine, Sweden, Switzerland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic, entrepreneurs have an opportunity to take part in new development directions in the region and benefit from EU assistance programs.

The mission of the association is to match business activities with the latest scientific achievements to enhance the

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efficiency of the process of bringing research findings to the marketplace and to support joint lobbying by chemical companies. The Green Chemistry cluster is one of the few clusters in Poland involved in international activities for its members in the form of numerous trade missions, study visits and experience sharing with foreign companies.

The Green Chemistry cluster offers its members an opportunity to: :: establish better coopeation with other organizations in the sector, :: enhance competitiveness on the market by applying modern technologies, :: promote their products, :: share experience with other members, :: cooperate with companies in Poland and other countries, :: acquire up-to-date information and news from the chemical sector, :: get assistance in acquiring funding for developing innovative products and putting them into practice, :: work with research and development staff and institutions operating in the business environment.

Additionally, since 2008 the association has organized an annual conference for chemical companies active in the Pomerania euroregion.

Called Chemika, it is the only international industrial conference in the

Zachodniopomorskie (West Pomerania) province combined with a B2B exchange and a trade fair.

In 2011 the association and the Center of Bioimmobilization and Innovative Packaging Materials in Szczecin set up the Platform for Producers of Innovative Materials and Packaging.

Its main task is to integrate research and application work in the area of new materials and solutions in the packaging sector, share production experience, look for new fields of activity in the food and related sectors and apply for EU funding for research and product applications.

The patron of the cluster is the chairman of the province. Thanks to cooperation with the Province Chairman’s Office, which is a member of the cluster as a local government unit, activities are pursued to reach companies operating in various sectors in the province and to promote the province in Poland and other countries. :: West Pomeranian Cluster Association Green Chemistry Al. Piastów 18 70-310 Szczecin Tel. +48 91 852 36 31 Fax. +48 91 452 44 61 e-mail: jacekd@zielonachemia.eu www.zielonachemia.eu

The author is President West Pomeranian Cluster Association

Advertorial

Polski Koks – a brand name known across the world Since 1996 Polski Koks SA has been consistently building and strengthening its reputation as Europe’s leading coke exporter, one also present on overseas markets.

As a supplier of high-quality blast-furnace coke for the largest steelworks in Europe, the company plays a major role in steel production in the region. However, among its customers are not only steel producers but also those operating in the metallurgical and chemical industry, which ensures optimum customer diversification. With a diversified portfolio of customers and their industries, Polski Koks is able to monitor the markets and flexibly adjust production and sales policy to the rapidly changing environment. The company has based its consistent sales policy on solid and long-term contracts with customers and successfully exploited its potential for entry onto other markets. As a result, it managed to survive many economic crises and record satisfactory results.

As part of the JSW group of companies, Polski Koks has seen its exports potential expand after the acquisition of two coking companies

by JSW – Kombinat Koksowniczy Zabrze and Wałbrzyskie Zakłady Koksownicze Victoria, a major producer of foundry coke in Europe.

As a subsidiary responsible for sales in JSW Group, Polski Koks offers the full range of coke grades, produced using modern technologies and meeting the requirements of the European and global steel industry and other industries.

Being aware of the need to adjust to changing market conditions, especially to the customers’ growing quality requirements, Polski Koks has taken an active part in projects and initiatives aimed at improving the efficiency of the Polish coking industry and reducing its environmental impact.

Since 2009 the company has been involved in the scientific research project entitled Smart Coke Plant. It is a response to the need to modernize technologies and management methods used in coke production.

The project is designed to enhance competitiveness in coke production and social approval of the industry. The concentration of research staff and practitioners in creative research teams pursuing the conceptual, experimental and innovative idea of an smart coking plant will enable the efficient operation of the coking industry in the changing conditions associated with coal supply, steel production and increasingly strict environmental requirements in Poland and Europe. New procedures, knowhow packages, programs and services are to be developed.

Polski Koks carries out an innovative project to build a plant for the production of composite solid fuels. Its product will be an environment-friendly fuel based on the flotation concentrates produced by JSW. The fuel will be suitable for boilers used in residential buildings, leading to a reduction in emissions from low chimneys in the region of Silesia.

Polski Koks is an innovative company promoting new technologies in the coke and mining industry. :: ADVERTISEMENT

WORLD LEADING COKE EXPORTER POLSKI KOKS – Company founded in 1996 and currently forming part of the JSW Group – is a world leading coke exporter.

The main activities of Polski Koks SA are coke and coal trade as well as comprehensive forwarding service.

The quality and wide assortment of coal and coke produced within the JSW Group offered by Polski Koks SA strengthens the strong position of the Company. 3-4 /2012 :: polish market :: 65

Polski Koks S.A. PL 40-527 Katowice ul. Gawronów 22 tel. +48 32 357 09 00 fax +48 32 357 09 08 PL8000304

Banking

150 years of cooperative banking in Poland In March it is 150 years since cooperative banks started to operate in Poland. The anniversary coincides with the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives, which is celebrated under the slogan Cooperative Enterprises Build a Better World.

Prof. Małgorzata Zaleska

The author is a Member of the Management Board of the National Bank of Poland, Associate Professor in the department of Banking of the Warsaw School of Economics and Vice-Chair of the Presidium of the Committee on Financial Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences

To mark the 150th anniversary of cooperative banking, Poland’s central bank—the National Bank of Poland—put into circulation two collector coins, which apart from being intended for collectors are also legal tender. The front-side of the 10-zloty silver coin features a stylized part of the headquarters of the cooperative bank in Brodnica, considered to be the oldest cooperative bank in Poland. Apart from the bank in Brodnica, there are now 573 other cooperative banks operating in the country.

All of them are fully Polish and their capital is exclusively Polish. What is more, under existing regulations, it is impossible for foreign capital to enter the cooperative banking sector.

Compared with other banking sectors in Poland, the cooperative sector is composed of the largest number of banks, but its market share measured by other characteristics does not exceed 10%.

Going strong Polish cooperative banks survived many difficult periods, including times of war and communism, to become successful in today’s reality, even in the period of turbulence on global financial markets. Recently, Polish cooperative banks have recorded very satisfactory results and one can well say that they have benefited from the crisis.

In the period of turbulence—from December 2008 to December 2011— cooperative banks raised their own funds by 50% without any support from the Polish government. At the same time, the banks have generated a surplus of deposits over lending to the tune of almost PLN16 billion, which means they have enough money to expand lending activity. It

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should also be noted that in 2011 the banks generated PLN920 million in profit, which represented an increase of 25% on the previous year. The profit may be used to additionally augment the banks’ own funds and to strengthen their lending activity. If the banks set aside their whole 2011 profit for loans to small and medium businesses, while keeping their solvency ratio at the present level of 13.4%, which is quite satisfactory, they would be able to offer loans worth almost PLN9 billion.

Challenges The further development of the cooperative banking sector depends on both internal and external factors. One of the important external factors is that the proposed reform of the EU’s capital requirements regime, called the CRD IV package, does not take into consideration a specific feature of cooperative banks, that is the role of their members’ funds. It is unclear whether under the new directive members’ funds will be included in cooperative banks’ own funds for the purpose of calculating capital adequacy ratios. Meanwhile, the members’ funds are the banks’ primary capital and their significance should not be undermined. If we recognize that it is advisable to strengthen and expand the cooperative banking sector then we should try to enhance the role of members’ funds. The share of members’ funds in the own funds of cooperative banks has been steadily decreasing, going down from 11.6% in 2008 to 9.4% in 2011. As a result, regulatory changes are needed to make it more attractive for individuals to become cooperative bank owners, which means we should also consider changing the cooperative principle of

one person, one vote, which is applied in Polish cooperative banks. It would also be advisable to convince EU decision-makers that members’ funds should be included in the process of calculating capital adequacy ratios. It is valid to adopt different regulations and legal requirements depending on the type and scale of banking activity. However, the direction of change seems to be controversial - stricter requirements should be imposed on big banks rather than small ones while it is the other way round in this case.

Irrespective of the above problems, one can hope that Polish cooperative banks are able to adjust and operate successfully for another 150 years. ::

Polish cooperative banks survived many difficult periods, including times of war and communism, to become successful in today’s reality, even in the period of turbulence on global financial markets.

Advertorial

Going from strength to strength There is a good reason why the UN proclaimed 2012 as the International Day of Cooperatives

SBRiR management: (from right) Jan Bajno, president of the Management Board, Elżbieta Kubuj, vice-president of the Board, Małgorzata Denis, member of the Board, Piotr Roczek, president of the Supervisory Board

Cooperatives and cooperative banks have a splendid tradition of almost 170 years in Poland. The idea of solidarity, self-help, harmonious cooperation in business and problem solving turned out very popular. The cooperative movement thrived both in the period when Poland was occupied by its neighbors in the 19th and early 20th century and after it regained independence. In December 2011 SK bank, a cooperative bank based in the town of Wołomin outside Warsaw, celebrated its 85th anniversary.

Cooperatives, which rely on selfhelp and cooperation in solving difficult problems, make up the main part of the social economy sector. The global crisis of 2008 and the next years was needed to prove beyond doubt that the profit-motivated private sector is unable to deliver social and economic development on its own, and that many people do not fit in and consequently are subject to marginalization and exclusion from this system. Meanwhile, community-based activities give them an opportunity to solve their problems. The global political, economic and social elites have noticed that. It is not without reason that the United Nations proclaimed 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives.

Banking is one of the main spheres of cooperative activity. But there is a fundamental difference in philosophy

between a commercial bank and a cooperative bank, such as SK bank. “Our bank is a cooperative and a cooperative means people,” says Jan Bajno, president of the bank. “In a commercial bank, the client is assessed in terms of how much profit they generate. Meanwhile, at SK bank the clients are valuable in their own right. The important thing is what they can contribute to our community and what we can do together. Of course, it is also important how much we will earn as a result - we are a bank, after all. But this is not the primary consideration. If clients do not generate losses to us it is enough for them to be considered good clients.”

An individualized approach to the client is the strength of cooperative banking. The practice of scoring in client assessment certainly makes life easier to advisers at commercial banks – what they need to do is to enter some data and see the decision displayed on the computer screen—“yes” or “no”. But the client feels treated in an impersonal way, just like one more number. For this reason, many clients abandon commercial banks, choosing cooperative banks instead, including SK bank, because here they are partners for the adviser. This approach creates a friendly atmosphere in which the clients feel safe as they are aware that they can always count on assistance, even if not all goes well.

“I know my clients. Each of them may come to me to talk and share their problems with me,” says Jan Bajno.

“In such a situation, we jointly consider how to solve the problems, how to create conditions for going safely through lean years. Because it is clear that when fat years come everyone will benefit and will be satisfied.”

The bank’s advantage is that it is firmly rooted across the area where it operates and has close ties with the local communities and supports them not only in the sphere of economic

activity but also social and cultural initiatives. As a result, the bank is able to offer investors, including foreign ones, know-how assistance, like for example information on the local market where the bank operates and contacts to local entrepreneurs, as well as business and financial assistance, including advantageous loans and deposit accounts.

In 2011 SK bank continued its rapid expansion which had begun several years earlier. This is best reflected in a significant increase in its most important financial indicators. Last year the bank’s own funds rose from over PLN67.1 million to nearly PLN97 million, or by almost 45%. At the same time, its gross profit increased by almost 80%, from nearly PLN6. 9 million to nearly PLN12.4 million. Also in 2011, the bank’s balance sheet total crossed the PLN1 billion mark for the first time ever, rising from over PLN725 million in 2010 to over PLN1.06 billion, or by almost 47%.

The process of the bank’s continued development is also reflected in the expansion of its area of operations and consequently a rise in the number of its banking outlets. Three new outlets were opened in 2011—in Myszków, Mińsk Mazowiecki and Tłuszcz and there are now 30 of them in total. Obviously, contrary to the general trend, employment at the bank also grew - by 10%.

These undeniable successes have been noticed and appreciated. In the 13th Bank Friendly to Entrepreneurs competition, SK bank won the title of laureate and a Golden Statuette with the Promotional Emblem with Five Stars in the cooperative banks category. In the same category, the bank won a Platinum Statuette for “enriching and streamlining friendly cooperation with small and medium enterprises.” And the Polish Success Academy awarded the SK bank its prestigious Gold Medal for “achievements in corporate banking and commitment to local communities.” At the Third Cooperative Banks’ Technology Forum, SK bank raked sixth in the largest banks category. The bank also won the title of Solid Employer of 2011. :: 3-4 /2012 :: polish market :: 67

Law

Pharmaceutical patents serving innovation Patent protection for pharmaceuticals is in keeping with the European Union’s policy to base the future of Europe on innovation. There are a few options available for a pharmaceutical company seeking patent protection in Poland—from a national patent procedure to international procedure, in which case Poland is one of the countries where protection is sought.

By obtaining the patent, its owner receives the exclusive right to use the invention commercially or for professional purposes throughout the country.

Patent benefits

Małgorzata Paluch, Head of Pharmaceutical Law Department, Chałas & Partners Law Firm

Magdalena Markiewicz, Pharmaceutical Law Department, Chałas & Partners Law Firm

A patent gives the pharmaceutical company exclusive rights, in particular the right to manufacture, use and sell patent-protected products, thereby preventing third parties from doing so without prior consent from the owner. This is especially important for the pharmaceutical sector because a temporary monopoly granted to drug manufacturers enables them to pay the costs of clinical trials, which are needed to confirm the safety and efficacy of new drugs. To receive patent protection, a product has to be new, must not be readily derived from the existing state of knowledge and should have a potential for industrial application. Receiving a patent on a medicinal product in Poland involves a relatively small expense – the application fee is only PLN550. To be granted a patent, the applicant needs to submit to the Polish Patent Office an application, description of the invention and claims, which determine the extent of patent protection.

for the product in other countries on the basis of the national application.

European procedure Since its entry to the European Patent Convention on March 1, 2004 Poland may be indicated as a country where applicants can receive patent protection under the European patent procedure. The procedure makes it much easier for applicants to receive patent protection in multiple countries— they are required to file only a single application in one of the three official languages—English, German or French—and indicate countries where they seek protection. European patents are granted by the European Patent Office. The applicant is required to submit relevant translations of documents and pay fees in the process called validation. The European patent, which is a set of national patents, is not an effective solution for a coherent EU policy.

For some time now work has been underway on a single, centrally enforceable Community patent.

Not only national procedure

International procedure

One can receive patent protection for a medicinal product in Poland using the national patent procedure or a procedure covering multiple countries.

Important in this respect is the period of priority, that is the 12 months since the date of application with the Polish Patent Office when no other party has the right to apply for patent protection for the product in Poland or in other countries. In this period the claimant has the right to seek patent protection

Since December 25, 1990 Poland has also been a party to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), which enables receiving patent protection in nearly 180 countries. First, a single application is filed in English, German or French with a relevant receiving office. The receiving office in Poland is the Polish Patent Office. The procedure consist of the international phase and the national phase. In the national phase, the patent application

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is submitted to the national patent offices of the countries where the applicant seeks patent protection. This has to be done within 30 months since the priority date. The national patent offices, after examining the application, decide to grant or refuse to grant patent protection. The 30 months is the time when the applicant has the right to choose to give up protection in some of the countries which are parties to the treaty. On the basis of the preliminary international examination conducted in the first phase, the applicant has an opportunity to figure out how much the submitted invention is really worth. This is important because the national phase involves high expenses on translations, fees and representatives.

Supplementary protection Considering that a patent application for a drug is filed at the stage of clinical trials, long before the drug is put on the market, the real patent protection allowing the owner to generate profits from the patented product is shorter than is the case with other inventions. This is why pharmaceutical companies have the right to seek additional protection in the form of a supplementary protection certificate (SPC) and a pediatric extension. Additional protection for medicinal products lasts a maximum of five years. The term of an SPC is the period from the date of the first application to the date of the first marketing authorization for the product in Poland or another EU country minus five years. Additionally, if a pediatric medicinal product has received marketing authorization in the European Union and its registration documentation contains results of all examinations conducted in accordance with the approved plan of clinical trials with the participation of the pediatric population, the owner of the patent or supplementary protection certificate may obtain a sixmonth extension on the protection period. ::

Law

Renewable energy: a conundrum Law sees renewable energy as an opportunity for local communities to grow. Not all of them do.

Michał Paprocki

Lawyer, partner at Kancelaria Radcowska Chmaj i Wspólnicy

Using the renewable energy potential at local level is a legal responsibility of local authorities. By using renewable energy local governments may ensure secure energy supplies and foster economic development as well as environmental conservation.

In addition, integrating energy supply and demand side, theoretically, makes energy services more accessible to ­consumers at the lowest prices possible.

Global electricity consumption has tripled in the last 30 years and the demand will continue to grow. Energy prices are on the raise. There is an ongoing discussion on how long the reserves of fossil fuels will last.

At present, only 8.4% of electricity is generated in Poland from renewable sources while as much as 91% is produced from coal, including lignite. In this sector, innovation is important not only in the context of technological and economic development—it is also a factor in energy security and environmental protection.

Obligation The Local Government Act puts an obligation on local authorities to deal with energy and environmental issues. Local governments’ tasks include planning and organizing the supply of electricity, heat and gaseous fuels.

Among the most important obligations is the responsibility of the district administrator/mayor to prepare draft guidelines for a plan for heat, electricity and gas fuels supply to the local district or its part. The

guidelines should determine the potential to use existing surpluses and local sources of fuel and energy, including electricity and heat from renewable sources, electricity and heat from cogeneration sources, and waste heat from industrial processes.

Timing The guidelines when adopted by the local council become a formal planning document, which takes into consideration the renewable energy sources existing in the area, and their environmental and economic advantages.

Under Article 17 of the Jan. 8, 2010 law amending the Energy Law and some other laws (Journal of Laws, no. 21, item 104), local governments are required to adopt the guidelines or update them within two years after the law came into force. The deadline was on March 12. Only 30-40% of local governments fulfilled that requirement.

Energy innovation is impossible without a cooperation between energy companies and local governments. Meanwhile there is a problem in bridging the gap between the two spheres. Local authorities complain of insufficient investment; businesses complain about the lack of sufficient local regulations.

Benefits Economic considerations also weight in favor of investment in renewable sources—the benefits for the local government include receipts from property tax and from the lease of

Energy innovation is impossible without a cooperation between energy companies and local governments. Meanwhile there is a problem in bridging the gap between the two spheres. Local authorities complain of insufficient investment; businesses complain about the lack of sufficient local regulations.

municipal land. Other benefits are associated with the development of new technologies and innovation, and the expansion of transmission and transport infrastructure. Renewable energy projects may attract other kinds of investment to the local district, which wins a reputation as being friendly to investors, new technologies and the natural environment. The development of distributed energy generation results in changing cash flows related to energy bills.

Renewable energy projects also contribute to job creation. Under the EU regional policy, it is assumed that renewable energy projects may contribute to improving living conditions in backward regions, regions experiencing industrial decline and degradation of agricultural and coastal areas, and regions with a low population density. EU funding is available to local governments for renewable energy projects. Agricultural land not suitable for growing edible plants because of significant soil contamination may be used to grow plants intended for the production of biofuels.

Measures taken by local authorities to ensure energy security by using renewable energy sources contribute to raising the environmental awareness of the local people. Renewable energy sources may have a major share in the total amount of energy consumed by many local districts. They may also contribute to improving energy supplies in areas with a poorly developed energy infrastructure.

Areas designated for renewable energy projects do not lose their usable and tourist assets. The projects do not require much space. Almost all of the land occupied by on-shore wind farms, for instance, excluding only the small parts occupied by wind turbines and service roads, may be used for agricultural purposes. :: 3-4 /2012 :: polish market :: 69

Law

The pitfalls of promoting liquor Advertising hard alcohol is a tricky business.

Maja Sujkowska

The author is the owner of the European Centre for Legal Consultations

Many businesses operating in Poland have to deal with regulations banning the advertising of alcoholic beverages. Since the legislation is very strict, some businesses may be unaware that the regulations are applicable to their activity. Among those at risk of breaching the regulations are not only producers and sellers of alcoholic beverages but also publishers, journalists, advertising agencies, event organizers, media houses, Internet portals and restaurants.

Under article 13, section 1 of the Oct. 26, 1982 law on counteracting alcoholism, it is prohibited in Poland to advertise and promote alcoholic beverages. One exception is beer, which may be advertised and promoted, however under strict conditions. Polish legislation also bans the advertising and promotion of products and services whose name, trademark, layout or packaging resembles or is identical with the designation of an alcoholic beverage or any other symbol associated with an alcoholic beverage. The legislator has gone even further and decided to prohibit the advertising and promotion of businesses and other organizations which use the name, trademark, layout or packaging associated with an alcoholic beverage, or its producer or distributor in their advertising image. The ban applies to individuals and businesses involved in advertising as customers and contractors, irrespective of its way and form.

One should also remember that legal definitions, which in many cases differ significantly from marketing terms, are what is used when classifying specific activities as promotion or advertising.

with extra bonuses and using other ways of publicly encouraging people to buy alcoholic beverages. It may be concluded from this provision that two features are needed for an activity to be called a promotion of alcoholic beverages. First, the activity has to be conducted publicly, which means it has to be targeted at an undefined group of people. Second, its aim should be to encourage people to buy alcoholic beverages, which is always debatable.

Strict view According to the legislator, the advertising of alcoholic beverages means publicizing trademarks or graphic symbols of alcoholic beverages as well as names and graphic symbols of their producers if these names and symbols do not differ from the names and symbols of the alcoholic beverages. Information used for commercial purposes in dealings between businesses involved in the production, and wholesale and retail sales of alcoholic beverages is not regarded as advertising. It should be noted that an important requirement for an activity to be called an advertisement for an alcoholic beverage is that it has to encourage people to buy the product.

The legislator has made a distinction between sponsorship and advertising and promotion. Under the law, sponsorship means directly or indirectly funding or co-funding the activity of individuals and businesses in order to popularize, establish or enhance the reputation of the name of the producer or distributor, trademark or other designation of the entrepreneur, their activity, product or service in exchange for publi­cizing the sponsor.

What is legal?

Under the legal definition, the promotion of alcoholic beverages means conducting public tastings of alcoholic drinks, distributing accessories associated with alcoholic beverages, selling alcoholic beverages

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A room for debate?

These precise and strict regulations prohibiting the advertising of alcoholic beverages have been widely debated in Poland. Although the general ban on alcohol advertising has been

in place in Poland since 1982 trade in goods and their advertising in order to boost demand acquired a completely different meaning after 1989, with the development of a free-market economy. As regulations prohibiting the advertising and promotion of alcoholic drinks became increasingly stringent, they were referred to the Constitutional Court, which was asked to check whether the regulations violated the civil rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Polish constitution and whether they did not harm the country’s economic system described by constitutional provisions.

The court ruled that the regulations were constitutional (see Journal of Laws. 2003.24.202 (W), Constitutional Court’s decision of Jan. 28, 2003; case reference number K. 2/02).

The watchdog The State Agency for the Prevention of Alcohol-Related Problems (PARPA) is responsible for making sure that restrictions and bans on the advertising of alcoholic beverages are respected.

One of the Agency’s tasks is to intervene if regulations on alcohol advertising are violated. The violation of restrictions on advertising, promotion and sponsorship is an offense prosecuted ex officio. Under the regulations, advertising or promoting alcoholic beverages is subject to a fine of between PLN10,000 to PLN500,000. ::

Polish legislation also bans the advertising and promotion of products and services whose name, trademark, layout or packaging resembles or is identical with the designation of an alcoholic beverage or any other symbol associated with an alcoholic beverage.

Cultural Monitor

Jarzyna to direct performance of Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion Grzegorz Jarzyna, one of the most famous Polish young theater directors and head of the TR Warszawa theater, will direct a performance of the large-scale St. Luke Passion by Krzysztof Penderecki. The premiere performance will take place March 31 in Alvernia Studios near the southern city of Kraków.

Celebrity jazz

Krzysztof Penderecki; Photo courtesy of Ludwig van Beethoven Association

One of the most outstanding Polish contemporary composers, Penderecki wrote the St. Luke Passion in 1963-1965 on commission from the Westdeutscher Rundfunk radio station to mark the 700th anniversary of the cathedral in Münster. The composition had its world premiere in the cathedral on March 30, 1966. In the same year, it was also performed at the Venice Biennale’s Festival of Contemporary Music. Since that time it has been performed on many occasions in Europe, the United States, South America and Japan. Last year it closed the 15th Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival in Warsaw. Outstanding singers Iwona Hossa, soprano, Piotr Nowacki, bass, and Thomas Bauer, baritone, will perform the vocal parts in Alvernia Studios. The soloists will be accompanied by the Camerata Silesia and Pueri Cantores Sancti Nicolai choirs, and the Aukso Chamber Orchestra under Krzysztof Penderecki. ::

Polish New Look An exhibition of functional ceramics designed in the 1950s and 1960s, entitled Polish New Look, is on at the National Museum in the southern city of Wrocław until April 1.

The exhibition features ceramic pieces produced by ­Poland’s oldest porcelain factories, including those in Ćmielów and Włocławek, and the private porcelain maker Steatyt in Katowice. It is the first exhibition focused on the work of designers employed by the porcelain factories. “All the earlier exhibitions devoted to this topic aimed to show the work of designers working for the Industrial Design Institute in Warsaw,” says Barbara Banaś, the exhibition’s curator. “The contribution made to porcelain design by artists employed at the design centers of individual factories was marginalized or even passed over ­altogether.” ::

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Branford Marsalis, one of the greatest contemporary jazz musicians, will be the star of the 48th Jazz on the Oder Festival to be held April 18-22 in the southern city of Wrocław.

The legendary American saxophonist and composer and his excellent quartet will present their latest album, Four Branford Marsalis; MFs Playin’ Tunes. The album, to be released in April, is ex- Photo: Palma Kolansky pected to be one of the biggest events in jazz music this year.

Swedish jazz bassist Lars Danielsson will also give a concert at the festival as will Polish jazz musicians Tomasz Stańko and Jarosław Śmietana. Jazz on the Oder, organized in Wrocław since 1964, is one of the oldest jazz festivals in Poland. ::

Soccer memorabilia on display The Great Soccer Exhibition has opened at Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Science in the run-up to the UEFA Euro 2012 final tournament.

The choice of the venue for the exhibition is no coincidence – the Palace of Culture is where the largest fan zone in Poland is to be located during the tournament. The curator of the exhibition is journalist Stefan Szczepłek, a well-known collector of soccer memorabilia.

The exhibition features mementoes on loan from the family of the late Kazimierz Górski, the best Polish coach of the 20th century, soccer shoes and balls from different periods, sporting pennants, trophies, and more than 100 T-shirts, including those of excellent German player Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and the legend of the Real club Francisco Gento. There is also a section for children with multimedia games. The exhibition will last until autumn.

City of Ruins The City of Ruins, the famous computer animated film which simulates a flight of the military bomber Liberator over the ruined Polish capital of Warsaw after the 1944 rising, is now available to the general public on Blu-ray.

The film, which is a co-production of the Warsaw Rising Museum and the Platige Image studio, has been shown at many festivals and contests across the world, and won the prestigious Muse Award of the American Association of Museums. The project took a team of over 30 people, led by Tomasz Bagiński, a year to complete. Bagiński is the creator of the animated film Cathedral, which had been nominated for an Oscar in 2002 in the Short Films – Animation category. The animators working on The City of Ruins studied hundreds of archive images and maps. Then, they created a database of Warsaw’s façades, cartographic, architectural, land-surveying and town-planning data as on April 1945, and employed the 3D technique to transform the black-andwhite photographs and historic footage into the virtual images offering a lifelike experience of the war-torn city seen from the air. The film is supposed to appeal to the imagination of contemporary viewers. And it does. ::

Cultural Monitor

Awards for Poles at World Press Photo 2012 Polish photographers Tomasz Lazar and Tomasz Gudzowaty have won awards of the 55th World Press Photo competition, the world’s most important contest for press photographers.

Tomasz Lazar won second prize in the People in the News category for a picture of an Occupy New York protester. Tomasz Gudzowaty won third prize in the Sports category for his photographs of the Mexican version of free wrestling with masked competitors. Lazar, 27, studied photography at the European School of Photography (EAF) and is a freelancer. Gudzowaty, 41, graduated from the Faculty of Law University of Warsaw.

He works for Focus Fotoagentur in Hamburg and Yours Gallery.

He is a multiple winner of the most important photo contests, including World Press Photo and Pictures of the Year. :: Tomasz Guzowaty, Lucha Libre

Polish visual artists on the Internet Since March 2012 every Internet user has an opportunity to see online films by Polish visual artists under the Filmoteka project run by the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.

It is the first large-scale program to offer digitized artistic films to the general public. Around 400 films by outstanding Polish visual artists, like for example Wilhelm Sasnal, Zbigniew Libera, Zbigniew Rybczyński and Artur Żmijewski, are available free of charge on www.artmuseum.pl. “We believe that everyone should be able to benefit from the work of Polish artists. We are thinking especially of the people who live outside large cities and do not have easy access to museums or galleries and of foreign viewers seeking information about Polish art,” says curator Łukasz Ronduda. “The program is unique also in the international context. Video and DVD films of contemporary artists are traded on the market, bought for private and museum collections. But Polish galleries decided to work with us and offer the films of the artists they represent free of charge. The artists also agreed to that – they decided that social interest was more Wilhelm Sasnal, Anarchy; Photo courtesy of ­important.” :: Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw

Maciej Proliński recommends:

To watch, to listen, to remember Knife in the Water, Innocent Sorcerers, Goodbye, See You Tomorrow—Best Film—DVD. Polish film classics from the glorious time of Polish cinema.

Knife in the Water, made in 1961, is Roman Polanski’s first feature film and the first Polish film nominated for the Academy Award Best Foreign Language Film. The story of a well-to-do married couple who invite a young hitchhiker to their sailing boat, with only three actors in the cast, has for years enjoyed popularity with successive generations of film lovers. Innocent Sorcerers, a 1960 film directed by Andrzej Wajda, is another “chamber film” telling a story of a young physician meeting a young woman. Interestingly, the director has called it “one of the most politically indifferent films he has ever made.”

For more than 50 years his films have provided comments on the most important public debates in Poland and taught Polish people national pride as well as criticism of their national faults. In the film, Wajda displays his talent as an impressionist and an expert knowledgeable about youthful dreams and secrets. Goodbye, See You Tomorrow is a 1960 film debut of the late director Janusz Morgenstern. It is a story of a romantic meeting – between a Polish student and a daughter of a foreign diplomat. It is also a portrait of the Polish young of the 1950s. Interestingly, the young are not affected by the trauma of World War II. A must-see!

Czesław Niemen – I Remember That Day – Polish Radio – 2CD Czesław Niemen was one of the most important Polish singer songwriters. The artist, who died in 2004, composed rock, jazz and electronic music. He sang and wrote poems. In his songs, he also used poems of the best Polish poets, like for example Cyprian Kamil Norwid and Adam Asnyk. Until 1967 he was a member of the Niebiesko-Czarni band. Later, he led his own bands - Akwarele, Niemen Enigmatic and Grupa Niemen.

He also appeared as a soloist. The discs released by Polish Radio contain concert and studio recordings from the period of 1962-1980. Among the recordings, published for the first time, are such unique pieces as Niemen’s version of A Hard Day’s Night by the Beatles. Niemen always had a good contact with audiences, something which is evident from the discs, which feature most of his hits. They are a real gem in the collection of every fan of the artist.

Paweł Mykietyn—The St. Mark Passion—National Audiovisual Institute (NINA) – 2CD Paweł Mykietyn, 39, is now the most important Polish composer of the young generation. His St. Mark Passion is a truly moving work. In church music, a passion is a composition devoted to the passion of Christ. It is a special music genre, which reached its height in Johann Sebastian Bach’s work.

It was not until the 20th century that composers braved the tradition. The first to do so was Krzysztof Penderecki with his St. Luke Passion. Music lovers should listen intently to Mykietyn’s contemporary dialogue with the history of music, a dialogue which is fascinating, well-thought-out and revealing unusual emotions. This is yet another record showing Paweł Mykietyn as a very versatile composer with great sensitivity and excellent intuition. The interpretation of Mykietyn’s composition brings the listeners to the top level of performing art. Among the performers are Urszula Kryger, mezzosoprano, Maciej Stuhr, reciting, the Aukso Chamber Orchestra under Marek Moś and Cantores Minores Wratislavienses. ::

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Cultural Monitor

The Bible Parables Another big production from the Polish National Ballet transcends biblical tales and classical music Maciej Proliński The Bible has always been a source of inspiration for artists. Biblical Parables, a set of three ballet acts, directed by Krzysztof Pastor, are in the offing from the National Opera.

Prodigal Son

Photo: Ewa Krasucka

The project opens with the Prodigal Son (music by Sergei Prokofiev), a parable from St. Luke. It is staged in Warsaw in sync with the ballet’s 1929 Paris premiere, choreographed by George Balanchine, which became the standard for the ballet’s performance.

“Balanchine created a sort of a link between the classical ballet and the modern ballet,” says Krzysztof Pastor.

“He showed how to utilize the classical techniques in modern forms. This is why he remains an important point of reference for me when it comes to the entire modern ballet.”

Cain and Abel and Six Wings of Angels Another part of the biblical triptych is the Parable of Cain and Abel, directed by Emil Wesołowski, with the score provided by Andrzej Panufnik.

Six Wings of Angels is the third part of Biblical Parables. This part of the show is choreographed and directed by Andrzej Przybyłowicz who makes parables himself to the music of Bach and Vivaldi.

Jakub Chrenowicz, a raising star conductor, leads the National Opera Orchestra for the Biblical Parables.

Pastor’s vision The triptych is a brainchild of Krzysztof Pastor, who sees the Parables as a part of a larger picture. “The Polish National Ballet is the largest ballet company in Poland, full of excellent dancers, Polish and foreign,” says Pastor.

“The ballet should reflect the character, the energy and the aspirations

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Krzysztof Pastor

of Polish society. This is why along with our tradition and classical ballet we have a diversified offer which includes the masterpieces of the Polish and international ballet of the 19th and 20th century”.

“My desire is to have a young, creative and dynamic team whose international staff enriches and inspires the Polish culture and by the same token, guarantees the highest possible quality of art and performance,” Pastor concludes.

Krzysztof Pastor is one of the most internationally renowned Polish ballet choreographers and directors.

The Polish National Ballet is the largest ballet company in Poland, full of excellent dancers, Polish and foreign.

It should reflect the character, the energy and the aspirations of Polish society. This is why along with our tradition and classical ballet we have a diversified offer which includes the masterpieces of the Polish and international ballet of the 19 th and 20 th century.

Pastor collaborated with the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, the Washington Ballet, the Drezden Opera Ballet, Royal New Zealand Ballet, and Hong Kong Ballet. In the 1980s Pastor joined Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam as a dancer. He progressed to the position of chief choreographer in 2003. His ballets Do Not Go Gentle (2000) and Kurt Weill (2001) won Pastor a universal acclaim in the Netherlands. Both shows were staged as part of the must-see ­ballet festival Nederlandse Dansdagen.

Pastor returned to Poland in 2009 having been invited to work as the director at the Grand Theater—National Opera. His mission was to build an artistically independent ballet to achieve the status of the Polish National Ballet. Pastor took the challenge but he also kept his link to Het Nationale Ballet where he retained the status of the choreographer-in-residence. Since then he staged Kurt Weill (2009), a show inspired by unique mixture of jazz and cabaret music.

His next production was In light and Shadow (2010) with music by Jan Sebastian Bach. Pastor also produced a quite unique ballet entitled And rains will come… (2011) to the music of the late Henryk Mikołaj Górecki.

In 2011 Pastor received the Golden Medal Gloria Artis from Bogdan Zdrojewski, Minister of Culture and National Heritage.

In late 2011, while he continued to serve as the head of the Polish National Ballet, Pastor accepted yet another set of responsibilities: art director of the ballet company at the Lithuanian National Theater, Opera and Ballet in Vilnius. ::

thE BiBLiCAL

PARABLES Ballet evening in three parts

|

Conductor: JAkuB ChREnoWiCz

Sergei Prokofiev

1 . T H E PR O D I G A L SON

Choreography GEoRGE BALAnChinE / Staging PAuL BooS / Set and Costume Designer GEoRGES RouAuLt Andrzej Panufnik

2 . CAI N A ND A B E L

Choreography EmiL WESołoWSki / Set Designer BoRiS kuDLičkA Johann S. Bach, Giovanni B. Pergolesi, Antonio Vivaldi

3 . SI X W I NG S O F A N GELS

Choreography JACEk PRzyByłoWiCz / Set Designer BoRiS kuDLičkA

PREmiERE 14/04/2012

nEXt PERFoRmAnCES 15, 17, 18/04; 6/05/2012

Culture

Acclaimed festival – good cultural elitism Elżbieta Penderecka, president of the Ludwig van Beethoven Association and managing director of the Ludwig van Beethoven Easter Festival, talks to Polish Market’s Maciej Proliński about what the festival has in the offering.

Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski has recently said that almost PLN2.9 billion will be spent on culture from the state coffers this year, the highest amount in 16 years.

What, in your view, is the place of Polish culture in social life? And is the amount mentioned by the minister really that impressive?

Culture has always been Poland’s showpiece. Polish music has an important place in the world, especially in Europe. We are always present in the international arena, with best Polish ensembles, singers and first of all excellent composers. We have very talented young

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musicians and new concert halls opening in Poland. We are engaged in a lively artistic dialogue with the world. Outstanding German conductor Alexander Liebreich will become in September head of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra in Katowice, considered to be the leading Polish orchestra. This does not mean however that we do not have problems. The first issue is the copyright, which needs a much better protection. Second, there are Polish students at the Juilliard School and Curtis Institute of Music. These young people win awards at international competitions but do not have the quality instruments they need.

Private patrons could play an important role in this respect. What is the situation with regard to art patronage now?

I have recently approached several Polish businessmen and talked to several banking executives. It is a shame that Poland, a country with a prospering economy and outstanding music tradition, does not have a single collection of old instruments, which would help young musicians to perfect their skills. Especially that one cannot think of a better investment than buying an old instrument – not only for young musicians but also for potential patrons investing their money because the value of such instruments grows steadily month by month. I dream of creating such a collection.

Unfortunately, for the time being, there is no response to our proposal. The problem in Poland is that the share of business in the longterm investment of this sort is still very small.

But I am convinced that we are able to change these proportions and open Polish culture much wider to business by overcoming existing mental barriers. I also hope that someone will one day help us in removing such barriers and building bridges between culture and business because this is the only road to increased innovation in Poland.

But the widespread view is that spending on culture means generating costs rather than making an excellent investment.

First, culture is a basic element the young generation needs for their general education.

Second, culture should not be regarded as an “unnecessary decoration” because it is also part of the economy, a part which does not satisfy any needs but creates them. The French have shown for years that culture is a strong driver for the economy. I believe that someone in Poland will finally come up with such economic calculations as well. If we look at concert halls worldwide we can see that 75% of the audiences are middle-class people of middle age or older. In Poland the situation is different, with audiences composed mostly of university and college students. This is the group we try to address. But everywhere audiences expect top-class orchestras, soloists and debuts of gifted musicians.

What is the relationship between art and business at the Easter Festival?

Apart from subsidies from the Culture Ministry and Warsaw municipality, we have very loyal sponsors. I owe them special thanks. The festival is supported by two joint stock companies controlled by the state, Gaz-System

Culture and Orlen, and they have not reduced their funding for the festival this year. In such cases, much depends on the people who manage the organization—whether or not they understand the importance of culture and cultural diplomacy. This is a difficult time for organizers of cultural activities in Poland. But our festival will be held as planned, in its traditional form and with the original program.

One should remember that art ­cannot survive without private patrons.

The Beethoven Academy Orchestra, the apple of the Association’s eye, will play in the concert inaugurating the 16th festival. The orchestra is an excellent example of how one can help young Polish artists.

Active since January 2005, the Beethoven Academy Orchestra is now one of the best Polish symphony orchestras. It is made up of people who have a real passion for music—the best graduates and students of European music schools, such as the Academy of Music in Cracow, Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Conservatoire International de Musique in Paris and Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Graz. I decided to give the orchestra a chance and they will inaugurate the festival this year.

The festival begins with a concert by the winners of the 14th International Pyotr Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, which is one of the world’s most important music competitions. The soloists—pianist Daniil Trifonov and cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, winners of the First Prize at the competition, and violinist Sergey Dogadin, winner of the Second Prize—will be accompanied by the Beethoven Academy Orchestra under German conductor Clemens Schuldt, who has recently won the First Prize in the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in London. The program of the concert features Triple Concerto in C major and Wellington’s Victory by Ludwig van Beethoven, and Symphony No. 4 in E minor by Johannes Brahms. The mission of the Ludwig van Beethoven Foundation, the organizer of the festival, is to promote Polish talent, seek funding for grants, make it possible for young musicians to go abroad and show them how they should start their career. We offer them master classes as an accompanying event to the festival. This year it will be violin classes with Prof. Igor Petrushevsky. As usual, we will also hold an international music symposium and show an exhibition of musical manuscripts at the Jagiellonian Library in Cracow.

These are our important educational tools.

The festival has become an important part of cultural life in Poland and Europe.

“I firmly believe that as every year, the

large and loyal festival audience will enjoy the presence of genuine stars and virtuosos,” Polish President Bronisław Komorowski wrote in the introduction to the catalogue of the 16th festival.

Our festival offers music lovers an opportunity to listen to wonderful concerts by excellent artists from across the world. The festival, which came into being in 1997, has quickly become an important landmark in the cultural landscape of Poland and Europe. It has won recognition from the European Festivals Association based in Ghent, Belgium, becoming its member in October 2001. Each of our festivals has a different program. By presenting European music in interesting and diverse ways, the festival enables audiences to see what inspired Beethoven, how his music influenced other composers of various periods and what place Beethoven’s oeuvre has in contemporary European art. Every year, we attract new listeners, who share their time between Luzern and Salzburg where similar Easter festivals are held at this time of the year.

Our festival represents good cultural elitism.

The main theme of this year’s festival is War and Peace. In March, the Mariinsky Theater of Saint Petersburg will show Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace, one of the most monumental operas, at Warsaw’s National Opera House. It will be the first staging of the opera in Poland. Did the first-ever performance in Poland by the Mariinsky Theater inspire you in planning the program of the festival this year?

Our concerts will be held this year at the National Philharmonic and Royal Castle in Warsaw. Unfortunately, we will not be present at the National Opera House. The festival will show relationships between Russian literature and culture and Beethoven’s music. The presence of world-famous conductors will be the highlight of the 16th festival, with Paavo Järvi leading the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen orchestra, Andrey Boreyko the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and Ingo Metzmacher the Mahler Jugendorchester. The audiences will have an opportunity to listen to compositions by our festival’s patron, Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich and other composers, including Krzysztof Penderecki’s Polish Requiem, which is a musical interpretation of the Latin mass for the dead. The final concert will be Claude Debussy’s Le martyre de Saint Sébastien, a five-act musical mystery play partly orchestrated by young composer and conductor André Caplet, who was Debussy’s assistant.

I regret that the Mariinsky Theater’s performance in Warsaw has not become part of the 16th Easter Festival. The festival’s audience

would certainly be eager to see the opera. But on March 29, the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev will perform Prokofiev’s famous symphony Alexander Nevsky at our festival.

A regular feature of the festival is that it discovers forgotten operas and promotes Polish visual artists, who every year come up with an intriguing poster for the ­festival.

As in previous years, the program of the festival includes an opera which has never been shown in Poland before. This time, it will be L’amore dei tre re by Italian Composer Italo Montemezzi. The opera, composed in 1913, is to be staged in conjunction with the Yale School of Music. Its soloists will appear in Warsaw together with the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Łukasz Borowicz, an outstanding Polish conductor of the young generation. Our festival always has a special visual setting—we are successful in choosing the artists who are at the forefront of Polish contemporary art. Among the artists who have designed posters for the previous festivals are Wilhelm Sasnal, Bartosz Materka and Jakub Julian Ziółkowski. The poster for the 16th festival is the work of Honza Zamojski. Our promotion campaign is based on this strong visual message.

Ever since his debut, Krzysztof Penderecki has brilliantly introduced Polish music to international audiences. His music is getting a phenomenal response these days.

And this response often comes from completely different worlds of art. What is your reaction?

Fifty years ago, Munich Opera musicians refused to play his avant-garde symphony Polymorphia. Then, not many years later—50 years is after all not much in the history of music—a young rock guitarist of the British Radiohead band, Jonny Greenwood, came to Poland insisting to meet Penderecki.

He said he had dreamed of meeting Penderecki all his life because his whole music was inspired by Penderecki’s early compositions. My husband was afraid of this meeting. But after his first talk with Greenwood, he was already convinced that they might produce something significant together. He felt Greenwood’s huge fascination. Penderecki and Greenwood’s album, the product of their unprecedented meeting at the European Culture Congress in Wrocław last year, will be released by the Nonesuch record company on March 13. After that concert in Wrocław, a young man approached my husband after the concert and said: “You wrote great music. And I thought you were already dead.” :: 3-4 /2012 :: polish market :: 77

Culture

The house of the rising prominence Kamienica is a privately-owned theater and a successful one too.

idea to have an own theater. “In 2002 I found a 100-year-old tenement building at 93 Aleja Solidarności street in Warsaw, which miraculously survived the war and the Warsaw Uprising,” Kamiński says. “It has a spacious hall underneath which was perfect for a theater. So I decided to call my enterprise Kamienica Theater.”

Making dreams come true In 2005 Kamiński’s foundation for the development of theater ATUT won PLN 5 million in a competition for financing artistic projects by the European Union. A lot of help in the project came from the office of the regional parliament and the city of Warsaw. But with all the good intentions and the growing friends and supporters network Kamiński could not overcome the burden of the budding economic crisis. “The EU funds could be made available to me only after I found someone who could offer me a guaranty for PLN 8 million in this project financing. I did not have that kind of money,” Kamiński says.

Stubborn man Emilian Kamiński, actor and promotor of culture

Kamienica Theater (Kamienica, in Polish, stands for tenement building), is one of the most acclaimed private theaters in Warsaw. In March the place celebrated its 3rd anniversary.

Since that time the creation of actor Emilian Kamiński and his wite, actress Justyna Sieńczyłło, has managed to stage 18 premieres and a number of social events. Their intensive activities earned them acclaim from many corners including such accolades as the Success of the Year 2011.

Dreaming man His drive to self-fulfillment and artistic freedom was at the core of the

Without the kind of money he needed Kamiński was stubborn enough to spend another three years searching for someone who would have enough faith in the commercial feasibility of the Kamienica project. Just about when the period in which the money was available was about to end Kamiński found a supporter: Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz Waltz and the Warsaw City Council came to his rescue. With the guaranty Kamiński was at last able to sign a contract for the EU financing with the governor of the Mazowsze province. The EU money became reality.

Speed and space

Had it not been for many good people who helped us with the project, the theater would not have become reality.

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The first tranche of the EU money came in July 2008. The construction works commenced with a breathtaking speed. Three stages were built on three levels. They can all house the

total of 500 spectators. The entire space of the theater amounts to nearly 2,500 square meters.

Moms and dads The theater’s opening night took place in March 2009. “Had it not been for many good people who helped us with the project, the theater would not have become reality,” says Kamiński.

“At the opening night I hanged up in the backyard a big plate carrying 168 names of the theater’s mothers and fathers,” Kamiński says.

Diversity Kamienica is more than just a traditional European theater. The place has its own spirit created by both actors and spectators who rub shoulders ­a fter shows. Some nights seem endless.

When it comes to the artistic program, Kamiński embraces many different trends. First is pure entertainment: comedies and scaled-down musicals. But Kamiński is not a stranger to some serous projects that embrace historic and patriotic themes such as the loss of national freedom during the WW2 or the traumatic experiences of the Warsaw inhabitants during the unprecedented and deadly uprising in 1944.

Beyond the obvious “Share and help” is the motto of the ATUT Foundation and this is why Kamienica is the venue of many charitable events for children in need, foster homes and homeless people.

Among the most extraordinary charitable projects is the play Passion which features homeless people. Another production, which now is being rehearsed every Saturday, features mentally ill actors.

In April Kamiński launches a new play. Directed by Barbara Sass the show, about the life of one of the pioneers of cinematographic stardom Pola Negri, will feature Justyna Sieńczyłło in the title role. ::

Harvard B usin Review Po ess lsk Conferenc a es

Events

Beyond business cooperation The 19th Economic Forum from the Association for Integration and Cooperation took place in Toruń in early March.

Jacek Janiszewski, one of the organizers of the 19th Economic Forum

Olgierd Dziekoński, presidential minister talking during a plenary session

Economic, cross-border systemic ties was the theme discussed among others by Olgierd Dziekoński, a presidential minister; Tomasz Suchański, General Director of Biedronka retail chain; Sławomir Hinc, Vice-President of PGNiG; Teresa Kamińska, president of the Pomorska Special Economic Zone, Jerzy Bańka, deputy president of the Association of Polish Banks; Adam Szejnfeld, MP; Maciej Stańczuk, President, Polish Enterprise Bank, Józef Oleksy, former Prime Minister; Krzysztof Komorniczak, President of the European Center for Tax Consultation and Documentation; prof. Jacek Kubica, teacher at Collegium Medicum of the Nicolaus Copernicus University; and Piotr Banach, National Sugar Company.

The conference was also attended

by Jerzy Wenderlich, deputy speaker of the lower house of the Polish parliament; Jan Worowiński, deputy speaker of the Senate; Piotr Całbecki, the speaker of the regional parliament of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie region; Michał Zaleski, Mayor of Toruń; and Jacek Janiszewski, chair of the program committee of the Association for Integration and Cooperation.

Business across the borders The postulate for a good cross-border economic cooperation was exemplified by the operations of the Biedronka retail chain operated by Jeronimo Martins. According to Marek Sawicki, Minister of Agriculture who spoke at Marek Sawicki, Minister of Agriculture, during a panel discussion on agriculture and trade

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the conference, when Biedronka began to deveop its business in Poland the ministry feared that it would take away a piece of the market from the Polish farmers. Quite to the contrary, the chain began buying agricultural products from the Polish farmers selling them in Poland and abroad, Sawicki said.

Relations with eastern neighbors A special panel was devoted to Poland’s relations with its eastern neighbors.

Representatives of regional governments from Belarus and Ukraine took part in the conference.

Social issues The conference also focused on social issues. The representatives of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, the Scientific Association of Salesians, European Center for Cooperation with Youth, and the Center for Mazowsze Region Research, talked about the role of the state in safeguarding the freedom of speech and personal freedoms.

Energy Modern ways of energy generation were also on the agenda thanks to Sławomir Hinc, vice-president of PGNiG, Zygmunt Strubiński, President PGNiG Energia S.A.; and Sławomir Mazurek, President, Konin Coal-mine.

Impact According to the organizers, the forum, once again, proved to be a good platform for the exchange of ideas between professionals, academics, artists and politicians representing different political affiliations. An important function of the congress is the matchmaking between business and stakeholders, more so as along with formal speeches and keynotes the forum offers its participants a lot of opportunities for informal face time. ::

Events Former Prime Ministers: Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Leszek Miller, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz and Józef Oleksy in the company of Iwona Sroka, President & CEO of the National Depository for Securities -KDPW, Andrzej Malinowski, President of Employers of Poland and Tomasz Lis, moderator

Looking ahead with hope Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz and Leszek Miller

Józef Oleksy, former Prime Minister

Andrzej Malinowski, Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Leszek Miller.

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Polish Economic Congress, a three-day-long event, brought under the roof of Warsaw University of Technology the leaders of the strategic sectors of the economy including energy, finance and telecom together with lawmakers, legislators, politicians and academics.

On the agenda were such issues as general challenges for the economic and social development of Poland which, according to the experts include the problem of investment financing, the implementation of digital mass media platforms and energy security. The first day of the congress was almost entirely devoted to diagnosing those problems for solutions.

Former president Lech Wałęsa, who spoke on the second day of the forum, said that the global rivalry of the nations should become an artifact of the past while global cooperation should become the staple of the new world order. Wałęsa also cast a shade of doubt whether the current economic model is able to support the further development of the global society in which the areas of economic exclusion and poverty, such as in Africa, will no longer be tolerated by the educated masses of the developed world.

The panel Wałęsa spoke at comprised former Polish prime ministers inlcuding Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Józef Oleksy, Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz,

Leszek Miller, and Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz. They all agreed that the Polish economy has reached a point in which it will not be able to go on developing further without bold decisions by politicians, business leaders and academic elites. At stake is the speed with which Poland cuts the distance to the developed world.

All panelists spoke in unison about the need for the Polish economy to utilize innovations to boost its competitive edge. According to Tadeusz Mazowiecki and Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, what Poland needs today is human capital.

In turn, Józef Oleksy said that R&D in Poland is underfunded which stalls the economic development.

Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said that Polish science has to be modernized in order to deliver in the modern world.

Leszek Miller, in turn, noted that the business sector is what makes the economy develop and that businesspeople expect a legal framework which would let them spread their wings rather than dwarf their entrepreneurial spirit. ::

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Events Standing: Stanisław Mikulski, Prof. Michał Kleiber, Alicja Węgorzewska, Prof. Marek Krawczyk, Beata Mońka, Marian Dziędziel, Doda, Maciej Zień, Dominika Gawęda, Martyna Wojciechowska, Magdalena Zawadzka, Jerzy Gruza.

On their bended knees: Capt. Tadeusz Wrona, Mariusz Pujszo, Jan Kidawa-Błoński.

Celebrating extraordinary personalities and success stories

Captain Tadeusz Wrona

Prof. Michał Kleiber

Beata Mońka, President of the Board and CEO of CANAL+Cyfrowy, and Krystyna Woźniak‑Trzosek, Publisher of Polish Market

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Actress Magdalena Zawadzka

The 2011 edition of Personalities and Successes gala, organized by Mariusz Pujszo, movie director and art promoter, took place in Warsaw’s Radisson Blu hotel in March. Among the 2011 winners were head of the Polish Academy of Sciences Prof. Michał Kleiber and rector of the Warsaw Medical University Prof. Marek Krawczyk. Lifetime achievement awards went to actress Magdalena Zawadzka, movie director Jerzy Gruza and actor Stanislaw Mikulski. The 2011 Hero title went to PLL Lot pilot, captain Tadeusz Wrona.

Accepting her title singer Doda said that as a person who has unconventional personality she strongly supports the promotion of extraordinary individuals.

Performances by Natalia Safran, Pati Sokół and Alicja Węgorzewska and a mini fashion show staged by designer Ewa Pieczykolan followed the official part of the gala, which was hosted by Dorota Gardias and Mariusz Pujszo.

Mariusz Pujszo and prof. Marek Krawczyk

Events

Maciej Zień

Mariusz Pujszo, Martyna Wojciechowska

“I’m happy that the Personalities and Successes awards are becoming a landmark event,” Pujszo commented after the event. “My ambition is to promote people who, thanks to their strong personalities and individualism, make the world a better place. They may be controversial but so are all those whose impact on the world we live in is huge.”

The gala sponsors were Radisson Blu Warszawa, Air France, Sca’Viola, KLM, Pierroth, Hotel Omega, Very Advertising, Opulentia, Hotel St. Bruno, Hotel Fouquet’s Barriere, Abpol, Batycki, Sakana Sushi, House of Tudor, Visual Team, First Class Fitness, House of Tudor, Toyota Carolina Car Company, ENIRO Panorama Firm, MHS Consulting, Euro Metal, Goodman, Pure Sky Club, Restauracja, Mona Lisa, Kaprys, Profecto, CEDC, Restauracja Theatro, Hotel Park inn By Radisson Kraków, Zing, Marta Grycan, Itaka, TKM, Trasco Print, Para Cor, Pracownia Autorska Stankiewicz, Mitrum, Ewa Pieczykolan. PIWOWAR beverage brand was the main sponsor. ::

Dorota Gardias

Alicja Węgorzewska during the show

From left: prof. Marek Krawczyk, Beata Mońka, Marian Dziędziel and Jan Kidawa-Błoński

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Advertorial

The European Table in Moscow Bożena Skarżyńska Representatives of the European Table program present a certificate of distinction awarded to the Polish exhibition by the Prodexpo organizers.

The European Table stand attracted crowds of visitors on all five exhibition days.

Banquet tables at the embassy were groaning under the weight of the best Polish cold cuts.

Photos: Bożena Skarżyńska

The press conference was attended by representatives of the European Table program - Bożena Wróblewska, Zbigniew Nowak, Piotr Ziemann and Andrzej Parafiniuk.

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The Polish Association of Butchers and Meat Processors (SRW RP) took part February 13-17 in the 19th International Food Exhibition Prodexpo 2012 in Moscow, presenting a large European Table stand. The event marked the end of the Association’s second promotional campaign held under the slogan European Table - Tradition, Modernity and Quality. This European Unionfunded program was implemented for two years. At that time, the Association visited several third countries, including Russia, Ukraine, China and Thailand, to promote Polish meat and meat products.As many as 2,100 exhibitors from 55 countries showed their products at Prodexpo, the largest food exhibition in Russia and Eastern Europe.

The 100-meter-long stand prepared by the Association in conjunction with the Promotion Center at the Polish Chamber of Commerce (KIG) was one of the largest and most interesting Polish exhibitions ever held at Prodexpo. The SRW RP won a distinction from the Prodexpo organizers for the interesting form of promotion.

All members of the SRW RP National Council took part in the latest event held as part of the European Table program. They emphasized the great importance of this project for the expansion of Polish exports to the Russian Federation. Representatives of many member companies and a team of renowned chefs—Marcin Suchenek of the Hyatt Hotel, and Marcin Sasin and Paweł Ignacak of the Sheraton Hotel in Warsaw—were also present at the Moscow exhibition.

As had been the case with its other exhibitions abroad, the Association promoted European and Polish meat and meat products, with displays of cold cuts, tastings of meat snacks and dishes, and presentations of documentary films, brochures and flyers.

They supplemented the Association’s exhibition prepared - as usual - with great care. But it was direct meetings with Russian traders and consumers that were the most important for the SRW RP delegation and Polish entrepreneurs. The talks, which led in many cases to the announcement of

new contracts, were held at the stand and at two meetings in the Polish Embassy in Moscow. There was also a press conference.“The implementation of both promotional programs meant a great challenge and hard work for SRW RP,” said Bożena Wróblew­ ska, president of the KIG Promotion Center. Trips to exhibitions involve not only preparing the stands, tasting events and presentations. The SRW RP members demonstrated strength and consistency in carrying out the promotional projects. It was a good and well-thought-out strategy to be present in selected countries. The effects of these measures will come in two or three years. The Association and KIG are doing a good job for the worldwide promotion of Poland.”

“We can already see the effects of our trips to the Russian Federation,” said Piotr Ziemann, coordinator of the European Table program on behalf of SRW RP. Dozens of companies are allowed to trade with these countries and sales of Polish beef, pork and poultry are on the rise. We hope that border-zone trade with Russia will be launched on June 1.”

“One of our tasks is to promote Polish industry, culture and tourism,” said Polish Ambassador Woj­ciech Zajączkowski. We are open to any external initiatives. We support the kind of business meeting proposals as prepared by the Association of Butchers and Meat Processors. In Russia there is strong competition, which requires increased activity on the part of all those who want to develop trade relations with this country. Polish products are of high quality but need promotion to sell.”

This is what Janusz Rodziewicz, president of SRW RP said to sum up the Association’s latest European Table exhibition in Moscow: “The visit was successful in every respect. We took part in an interesting fair. Many prospective customers came to our stand.

Thanks to the involvement of Ambassador Wojciech Zajączkowski we could organize two meetings at the embassy.

We all decided that permanent promotion, meaning the continuation of our program, was the only chance for the expansion of Polish exports to third countries. One can hardly overestimate the importance of continued promotional activity in China, Russia and Ukraine.” ::

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Advertorial

Long live the organic food!

The organic food market in Poland has been growing continuously for many years. Even the recent financial crisis and the eurozone problems have not hampered its amazing dynamics. One reason is probably a steady decline in consumers’ confidence in food produced in large factories by multinational companies. As a result of a longterm price pressure that supermarkets have exerted on producers, most products available for sale are cheap and look good, but they are often rightly referred to as “junk food”.

Waldemar Sadowski Despite a fierce competition on the organic food market, there are still new businesses being set up here. One of the newest is Bio Planet, a company dealing with packaging and distribution of organic products.

Before it joined the game, most of the market was divided by well-organized and stable wholesalers. A young player made a dashing entry to the market, achieving a spectacular success.

But the mere launch of the product on the organic food market is no guarantee of success, because the market is not deep. In the same period, Bakalland, a big and experienced food industry player, listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, decided to venture into organic niche with a wide range of products under the brand name Organic Planet.

The project turned out to be a flop. Seeing no opportunities for growth, Bakalland’ s President Marian Owerko wrapped up the business pretty quickly. So why is it that Sylwester Strużyna, the founder of Planet Organic, pulled it off where Marian Owerko failed?

Maybe this industry requires a direct involvement, which is difficult to achieve in a large company? Maybe, apart from experience, you also need to have passion like Mr. Strużyna does? In this industry, success is measured not only by profits, but also by the faith that it makes sense to produce healthier food, without any chemicals, using methods that protect the environment and human health.

Yet, the commitment and the sense of mission is probably not the only reason behind the success of Planet Organic. “Sylwester is a wise and intelligent manager,” says about Strużyna Michał Kapica, the owner of a large organic food store in Warsaw. “He has a good understanding of the industry and reasonable plans.” There is something

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Aneta Sobieraj, Production Specialist, and Krzysztof Sobieraj, Regional Sales Manager

true about this opinion, given that a young company in a few years became one of the three top distributors of organic food, and in selected product groups, a leader. Supervised by AgroBioTest, a certification body, Bio Planet supplies organic stores across Poland.

It cooperates with organic store networks such as: Organic Farma Zdrowia, Green Way Market and Żółty Cesarz. Additionally, it can boast a successful cooperation with supermarket chains.

Bio Planet won trust and signed distribution contracts with such well-known brands as Alce Nero, Allos, Campomar Nature, Candy Tree, Glaserne Meierei, Natumi, Neumarkter Lammsbreau, BioLevante, Voelkel, Zwergenwiese. In addition, the company has launched its own brand and provides private label services.

A 50% stake in this company located in Wilkowa Wieś in the Kampinos Forest near Warsaw, is owned by Sylwester Strużyna and Grzegorz Mulik (who joined as Vice-President shortly after the sale was launched). Another big shareholder (30%) is Organic Farma Zdrowia, the largest organic food retail chain in Poland.

The “green” mission is no doubt important. But every business operates on a market and its financial results are fundamental for its existence. The turnover is still the measure of success and thus a must. In this respect, Bio Planet’s performance is phenomenal: the company was founded in late 2005, and in 2007, when first products marketed, its sales volume reached PLN 900 thousand. And in 2011, it exceeded PLN 18 million!

According to Sylwester Strużyna, Bio Planet is today, apart from the distribution of organic food, a leader also in packaging and selling organic dried fruits, nuts, rice and beans.

It is one of the largest importers, too. The company is dynamically developing the distribution of the organic dairy goods by such producers as Eko Łukta and Sobbeke. To meet this challenge, the whole transportation fleet had to be overhauled. In their front parts (about 40% of the loading space) vans have had refrigeration units installed, and the rear (approximately 60% of the loading space) is used to transport dry goods.

Maintaining such an impressive growth rate in the coming years will not be easy.

Bakalland has not given up the organic food market and is poised to launch a new project in this sector. Other distributors—Biofuturo and Eko Wital—have interesting development plans too. However, a dynamically growing market is a conducive factor. Subsequent scandals in the conventional food market, such as that with salt recently, result in ecological stores gaining new customers, and economic growth will sustain people’s incomes at least at a level comparable with that of the recent years. The organic market is likely to accommodate many more participants. So will Bio Planet maintain the current rate of development? Possible. The company’s revenue in 2012 is expected at PLN 25 million. That means a 28-fold increase in just five years. Where will such a young company make it in the next few years? ::

Bio Planet Sp. z o.o.

Wilkowa Wieś 7, 05-084 Leszno www.bioplanet.pl e-mail: biuro@bioplanet.pl The Association of Polish Organic Food Producers and Processors, “Polska Ekologia” ul. Miodowa 14, 00-246 Warsaw www.polskaekologia.org e-mail: info@polskaekologia.org

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