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Slovenian Technology Platforms

Published
by
Peter Polajnar
  on  January 22, 2006
  in  EU funding programmes
. 0 Comments

In the process of preparing researchers for the coming 7th Framework Programme and actively participating to the European Research Area Slovenian Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology decided to support the establishment of national technology platforms. They reflect the European initiatives.

The European Commission in 2004 started to actively encourage the development of the European Technology Platforms. These initiatives should unite as many as possible European stakeholders in a certain technological field. The groups should be able to better participate in the European research policy by creating their own strategic research agenda (SRA) that reflect wider needs. Moreover, the groups should be able to implement concrete research projects in a more effective way. Some of European Technology platforms will, following the example of Gallileo initiative, become legal personalities sui generis through a new measure of the 7th Framework Programme, namely Joint Technology Initiative.

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University Technology Incubator of STU has started its life

Published
by
Maria Buciova
  on  January 21, 2006
  in  Innovation policy
. 0 Comments

Incubators are one of support activities for newly established small enterprises. At the end of November the newest incubator, a University Technology Incubator of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU), has started its activities. The incubator was established and financed within the grant scheme INTEG Phare CBC Austria Slovakia.

In the newly reconstructed premises of STU at Pionierska street fifteen start-ups will find here their seat with high quality communication infrastructure as well as further legal, economy, marketing, financial and other special services by starting their businesses. The start-ups will seat in the Incubator for three years. Within this time they should fully start their activities and be able to survive at the market.

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BioScience Slovakia: Introduction

Published
by
Dana Ukropcova
  on  January 20, 2006
  in  Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

Dana Ukropcova obtained a Master’s Degree in Biotechnology at the Slovak Technology University in Bratislava and took a position of a junior biochemist in an environmental laboratory of the oil refinery Slovnaft. She held several positions at Sales of chemicals and diagnostic kits from main world producers. Leaving for Ireland, she successfully coordinated the EC project ‘Science and Technology Awareness’ for the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Limerick. After working experience in a Slovak/Austrian biotechnology company and passing BioBiz 4 in Germany, she has founded BioScience Slovakia in 2004.

The company specializes in science-based technology transfer, continuously maps and monitors specifically biotechnology R&D community, co-operates closely with local universities, funds and University Technological Incubator in Bratislava. BioScience Slovakia participates in FP6 projects and provides technical assistance to prospective participants of Structural Funds. At the Austrian ‘Best of Biotech’ Competition in 2004 and at the EU project ‘BioVentureAcademy’ in Brno in 2005 participated as a coach company.
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e-Passport testing

Published
by
Peter Druga
  on  January 19, 2006
  in  eGovernment
. 0 Comments

The US Department of Homeland Security has published information that a live test of e-Passports, that contain contactless chips with biographic and biometric information and the readers that are capable of reading these e-Passports, began January 15, 2006 at Terminal G at San Francisco International Airport. This test is a collaborative effort between the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore that will run through April 15, 2006. Participants include citizens of Australia and New Zealand who have been issued the new e-Passports, Singapore Airlines crew and officials holding trial e-Passports and U.S. diplomatic and official e-Passport holders. The e-Passport contains the holder’s biographic information and a biometric identifier, in this case a digital photograph, embedded in a contactless chip set in the passport.

LANGMaster International: when languages matter

Published
by
Vlastimil Vesely
  on  January 19, 2006
  in  Case studies
. 0 Comments

No matter how naive we may consider a business intention on the part of a Czech company to teach foreigners English, that is what made LANGMaster International successful. At present, it belongs among the top ten companies worldwide in the area of language training software.

The company history starts in the Mechanical Machine Research Institute where the company founder, Pavel Zika, was experimenting in memory learning automatisation. Later on, the Prague based company was transformed from a private limited company to a join stock one. These days, it is owned by 4 individuals including the director Jan Prucha with whom we were sitting together for this interview.
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Novitech: Using the FP funds for development of consultancy business in the IT company

Published
by
Ivan Filus
  on  January 17, 2006
  in  Case studies
. 0 Comments

Introduction of the EU funds for candidate (and current member) states opens a new marketplace for consulting companies. Except of the commercial services in project development and management paid directly by clients the consulting companies can use a large number of EC supporting activities in various programmes where the information activities and large part of the marketing of the consulting company can be funded from.

Novitech, a.s. is one of the Slovak SMEs using these funds in form of supporting projects, which enable the introduction and development of commercial consulting services in form of ?preparatory activities? (database building, dissemination campaigns, information days and trainings).

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Introduction of the Slovak IST NCP

Published
by
Maria Buciova
  on  January 17, 2006
  in  Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

My name is Maria Buciova. I received a master’s degree in economics at Faculty of Commerce, University of Economy in Bratislava, Slovakia. In 2003 I started to work at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. I work at the Rector’s office, Department of Science & Technology in the position of EU Programmes Manager.

Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava (STU) was founded in 1937. Since its foundation it has been graduated over 75 000 Master degree full-time students, over 10,000 Master degree part-time or distance students and more than 5000 Bachelors. Today STU is the largest research based university of technology in Slovakia.

STU provides higher education mainly in technology in wide spectrum of branches, e.g. Information technologies, Electrical engineering and electronics, Machine engineering, Chemistry, Biotechnology, Food technology, Civil engineering, Architecture, Materials and process technology. STU has more than 17 600 Slovak and international students at all levels and forms of study. Students are studying at 7 faculties of the STU, out of which 6 are located in Bratislava and one faculty is in Trnava.

The mission of the university is to provide university training based on research activities. All study programs are supported by basic research. The main focus for development in research is in perspective fields, formulated by Scientific council of the university: Information society technologies, Sustainable sources and development with sub areas: energy and environment, nanotechnologies, nanosciences and new materials and production processes, Biotechnologies and biocompatibility, Life, health, food, and Security, reliability, and quality. Over 350 research and academic projects have been running last year, from which more than 100 were international. The university research is provided by more than 1000 researchers.

In May 2004 I became an IST NCP. I am responsible for information dissemination. Actually in the priority Information Society Technologies there is a new call open. It is the last call aimed at project proposals in these strategic objectives: Advanced Robotics, Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) for the Ageing Society, Search Engines for audio-visual content, Accompanying actions in support of participation in Community, ICT research, International Co-operation. More information you can find here.

I participated in a Phare project of establishment of University technology incubator.

The highest productivity increase in Poland, Hungary and Slovakia

Published
by
Peter Druga
  on  January 16, 2006
  in  Current events
. 0 Comments

I just read interesting news about development of productivity during 2005 - the ten new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe delivered a spectacular acceleration in labour productivity growth in 2005 according to The Conference Board’s annual analysis of global productivity trends, Performance 2006: Productivity, Employment and Income in the World’s Economies. On average, the EU’s new member states EU-10 increased labour productivity growth rate from 4.1% in 2004 to 6.2% in 2005. Most of the EU-10 showed an improvement in productivity growth but Poland (from 4.1 to 7.7%), Hungary (from 3.7 to 6.3%) and Slovakia (from 3.9 to 5.5%) registered the most marked increases. Remarkably, Poland’s productivity level is now higher than South Korea’s.
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Roman Stanek’s 2nd success story

Published
by
Vlastimil Vesely
  on  January 13, 2006
  in  Current events
. 0 Comments

When an entrepreneur succeeds to build, grow and sell a globally successful company, it can be called an extraordinary achievement. There is not many cases like that in the Central and Eastern Europe. If he or she succeeds to do it again, it makes him a star exceeding the dimensions of the region.

Recently we discussed here with Tarmo the Estonian team behind Kazaa (peer-to-peer system for sharing MP3 files) and Skype (acquired by eBay) that did it under Niklas Zennström (Swedish) and Janus Friis (Danish) management. I’m glad there is another success story, this time having roots in the Czech Republic.

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R&D in Wine-Making

Published
by
Peter Polajnar
  on  January 13, 2006
  in  Case studies
. 0 Comments

Research policy of the EU, to the large extent performed through 6th Framework Programme (6FP), has its disadvantages. It is not completely in line with the Lisbon Strategy due to the frequent exclusion of SMEs from the FP6 funded projects. However, the SMEs are the most numerous performers of the innovative activities in the economy, they are its most dynamic part and they open the highest number of new jobs. Having in mind all this, it is necessary to include SMEs in the research and in this way increase added value of their products and services. Traditional industries are no exception, even agriculture or wine-making.
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