“We have technologies that stand out on the market. We have the famous perovskites, but I also wanted to point out that the development of this technology, which is indeed very promising, began in the first perspective, i.e. in 2007-2008, and only now we are reaching to the stage of commercialization of this idea, so it is a very long time” – said Małgorzata Szczepańska, director of the Department of Innovation and Development Support Programs at the forum of the 3rd Local Government Congress of the Three Seas Initiative, which took place in Lublin on May 16-17, 2023.
“European funds have been financing the area of innovation and new technologies for almost 20 years. Now we are entering the third perspective. It is more or less EUR 8-10 billion. This is huge money that Poland has to invest in the area of innovative technologies. These several perspectives, the programs that are dedicated in Poland to the development of innovation and related research activities are the largest in Europe, in the EU programs financing this area” – said Małgorzata Szczepańska, director of the Department of Innovation and Development Support Programs at the forum of the 3rd Local Government Congress of Three Seas. “These programs combine the national perspective and national strategies and what is important from the perspective of the European strategy” – she explained. “We have areas that are related to a healthy society, i.e. the areas of broadly understood social health or medical technologies, where we have a very high activity of companies. But there are specializations where this activity is practically non-existent” – she clarified.
“From our point of view, we have to consider whether, if we are talking about building technological sovereignty or strategic autonomy, should we ourselves, in Poland, not focus more on certain industries and areas and choose these areas strategically. We also have their artificial intelligence strategies” – she wondered.
“We have technologies that stand out on the market. We have the famous perovskites, but I also wanted to point out that the development of this technology, which is indeed very promising, began in the first perspective, i.e. in 2007-2008, and only now we are reaching to the stage of commercialization of this idea, so it is a very long time” – she noted.
Małgorzata Szczepańska informed that in the current perspective, “much more emphasis will be placed on digitization and green technologies.” “With these funds, we finance joint initiatives to a much greater extent. From this Smart Growth program and the Modern Economy program we will finance the creation of supply chains, i.e. cooperation between companies” – she announced.
Poland is a leader not only in hydrogen
“We can try to be leaders in hydrogen, in certain aspects of this hydrogen economy, and this is also something we wanted to communicate here to all Three Seas countries, to try together to create proposals for comprehensive projects for the hydrogen economy, whether it concerns the production of hydrogen or the use of hydrogen in transport, energy, use our capabilities and achievements in material technology – this will be crucial for the transmission and storage of hydrogen, for the development of specific solutions for fuel cells, power packs for fuel cells, etc.” – said Tomasz Jamróz, Director of the Department of Economic Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also pointed to the possibilities connected with 5G.
“It seems that we can find niches and strengths in this region both in terms of digitization and energy transformation, but we need to take stock of it and join forces when it comes to the countries of the region” – he concluded.
Anna Wiejak