Investors do not focus on high technologies. Poland is losing opportunities for accelerated development
Polish companies and corporations are increasingly bold in using advanced technologies, but they still rarely invest in automation, robotization, start-ups and deep tech companies emerging in Poland. There is also a lack of mechanisms that would allow innovative start-ups to implement their products and solutions in large companies in Poland on a larger scale and with greater risk. Unable to find their first customer or investor on the domestic market, start-ups cannot compete on the global market. Creating an appropriate ecosystem for the development of innovation would be beneficial for all parties.
According to the Central Statistical Office, in 2023 expenditure on research and development (R&D) activities in Poland amounted to PLN 53.1 billion, which means an increase of 18.8%. compared to the previous year. The R&D intensity index (GERD/GDP) was 1.56%. (in 2022 – 1.45%). This is still below the EU average (2.26% of GDP), but the growth dynamics is the highest in several years. The corporate sector accounted for 64.6 percent. expenditure, investing PLN 34.3 billion in research and development. The main barrier remains insufficient cooperation between companies and research centers – only a small percentage of industrial enterprises declare any joint research projects with universities.
Polish companies are technologically far behind
“Monitoring the innovation of Polish enterprises 2023” prepared by PARP states that the Innovation Maturity Index (WDI) of Polish companies was only 34.6 out of 100 points. Almost half of enterprises (44%) are skeptical about innovative activities. On the other hand, as many as 91.7 percent companies that introduced innovations indicated measurable benefits – primarily company development, improved product quality and greater work efficiency. This shows that investments in new technologies actually increase competitiveness, but there is still a lack of incentives and safe financing paths.
– Deep tech companies, based on research and development or technologically advanced engineering, are created by focusing from the beginning on a technology that solves an important industrial, human, environmental or health problem. Based on this problem, they try to address the technology and then find a customer for such a solution. This is often difficult, especially in our country. Companies with B2B solutions must look for a partner who will be the first to purchase, implement or test this solution. Such companies in developed countries are State Treasury companies, corporations or large domestic companies. But today in Poland it is still a big challenge – says Sławomir Olejnik, president of the Innovative Poland Foundation, CEO of Deep Tech CEE PSA, to the Newseria agency.
The pace of a given technology's exit from the laboratory to industry depends on the readiness of large customers for pilots. However, investors and entrepreneurs do not like high risk, and after many unsuccessful investments in software start-ups, they are less and less willing to invest capital in them, let alone deep tech.
– Working with such start-ups that are based on science and very advanced engineering is the key to building a competitive advantage, especially for companies thinking about international development. Today, if we want to get ahead of the competition, find savings, make the production process or business process faster, searching for this type of solutions and testing them can make companies more profitable – says the president of the Innovative Poland Foundation.
Will the European Union help? Money will appear
The European Union is developing capital tools for high-risk innovations. The European Innovation Council (EIC) has EUR 10.1 billion at its disposal in 2021-2027, part of which goes to the EIC Fund investment fund, supporting the most risky technological projects. The European Tech Champions Initiative is to fill capital gaps at later stages of development. In parallel, EIC is developing the Deep Tech Talent Initiative program, the ambition of which is to train one million specialists by 2025 to strengthen the competence base for technology companies throughout Europe.
European deep tech companies are currently valued at approximately EUR 700 billion. The 2025 European Deep Tech Report indicates that investments in the sector in 2024 amounted to EUR 15 billion. Poland, as a country with a strong engineering base, has the potential to join this trend if companies cooperate more often with scientists and test new solutions in their own production processes. Sectors such as energy, defense, health and new materials are today among the most receptive to high-risk technologies.
– We are a country with very expensive energy, so entrepreneurs should look for other solutions and implement them, but we cannot expect that all of them will be ready. If we continue to function as an economy in this way, we will continue to buy ready-made solutions and pay much more for them. On the other hand, we can start investing. Of course, we will incur a lot of expenses as entrepreneurs, but that is what it is all about today – learning to live in an economy based on high technologies and taking risks. We must assume that a significant number of projects will not work, but at the end of the day, those that remain will be much cheaper to use for companies in our country or region than those we buy abroad – emphasizes Sławomir Olejnik.
Research and development projects are among the riskiest investments – some of them do not reach the commercial stage, but those that succeed often bring a return that is many times higher than the initial outlays. In its reports, the OECD emphasizes that the risk of failure is a natural element of innovation systems, and an effective R&D ecosystem is one that enables rapid testing, verification and further financing of the most promising solutions. This year, even the Nobel Prize was awarded to researchers for explaining economic growth based on innovation.
– The ecosystem that enables engineers and scientists to implement their research and projects should be such that there are customers and investors on the market ready to take the risk of testing and commercializing research results – indicates the president of the Innovative Poland Foundation.
State Treasury companies must open
The solutions include the development and appropriate recapitalization of the innovation ecosystem in our country, changing the regulations on innovation grants and acceleration programs, opening State Treasury companies and large Polish enterprises to technologies, services and implementation of solutions from start-ups, as well as unblocking tenders and purchases for Polish innovative companies. Another issue is the mandatory association of all companies in chambers of commerce – this could support the construction of a value chain in individual sectors and the commercialization of start-ups and deep tech. In countries such as Germany and Austria, widespread membership in industry chambers means that technology creators find the right industrial partners faster.
– Today, 2% of people associate in Poland. companies and mainly large enterprises. Examples from developed countries show that a start-up that relies on hardware and combines it with AI automatically looks for partners in such an industry chamber and is already in the business environment related to its niche. It is easier for him to look for partners, acquire knowledge and enter a business environment that already exists in a specific sector – explains Sławomir Olejnik.
The OECD indicates that countries with developed industry structures and cooperation networks between companies and universities achieve significantly higher rates of commercialization of research and implementation of innovations. Strong industry organizations facilitate the flow of knowledge, connecting partners and technology transfer, which translates into a greater number of implementations and a shorter time to go from the laboratory to the market.
The Deep Tech CEE Summit 2025 will be held on October 27-29 in Warsaw, with over 500 participants from 20 countries, including 150 deep tech startups and over 200 entrepreneurs and investors.
– This is a networking platform where for two days you can find an investor, an entrepreneur who will be interested in testing the technology, and a scientist who will want to conduct interesting research. Deep Tech CEE Summit is a place where the entire ecosystem of Poland and the Central and Eastern European region gathers, which works every day to create interesting technologies. For entrepreneurs, it is a source of ideas, partnerships and inspiration. From a business perspective, companies and start-ups met at the Deep Tech CEE Summit can help them reduce the costs of running production or business activities, they can help them look for new products to include in their portfolio – explains the CEO of Deep Tech CEE PSA. – We have a special offer for entrepreneurs. We have built a Business on Tech stage where other entrepreneurs, investors, owners of family businesses and directors will share their experience, among others: in terms of how to make money on technologies, how to build companies based on them, when to take risks so as not to lose funds accumulated over the years.
