Czech Businessmen Not Interested in Financing Science and Research at Universities

Over the last seven years, the Czech universities submitted only 14 applications for patents, one of the main reasons for this being that the Czech businessmen are not interested in financing science and research at universities, stated the representatives of the Ceska hlava project, aimed at supporting and promoting Czech science and technology, on May 20, 2010.

“Research at universities is impossible without subsidies from the state budget,” Vaclav Marek from Ceska hlava added, noting that only 3.5 percent of Czech companies said that they have cooperated with universities. He emphasized that foreign companies are more interested in Czech patents than domestic companies.

Figures released by the Czech Statistical Office show that only 0.6 percent of the investments into research at universities in 2008 came from entrepreneurs. A study conducted by the Czech Statistical Office for Ceska hlava shows that the state provides approximately 91.6 percent of the financing for science and research. This percentage in the EU overall is 80.7 percent.

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Source: Prague Daily Monitor