Slovakia sets out strategy to turn around stagnating R&D system

Slovakia is looking to put a series of failed past attempts to rejuvenate its stagnating research and innovation landscape behind it with a new strategy that is being backed with unprecedented levels of public financing.

The national strategy for research, development and innovation 2030, approved at the end of March, will see public R&I spending increase by an average rate of 14% per year until 2030, reaching around €1 billion by the end of the decade.

Along with private investment in research, the goal is to get the country’s R&D intensity – the total R&D expenditure as a percentage of a country’s gross domestic product – up to the EU average of 2%. Currently, R&D intensity hovers around 0.9%, one of the lowest in the EU.

“This might not seem ambitious, but from the baseline we’re at it would be…