Nanoforum - Nanotech Regulatory Document Archive

13. Slovakia
13.1. General information
Introduction of the country
The Slovak Republic is a Central European country with about 5.5 million inhabitants.
Gross Expenditure on R&D was 0.68% of GDP in 2000. Main industries include
brown coal mining, chemical, metalworking, consumer appliances, fertilisers,
plastics, armaments.
Figure 24: Map of Slovakia
(Source: http://forum.europa.eu.int/irc/dsis/candidate/info/data/candidate countries/)
The government is adapting its policies including R&D policy to prepare for accession to
the European Union.
The ministry of economic affairs then wants to focus Slovakian R&D on two main goals:
• "Improving competitiveness and quality of existing products"
• "Support for such research and development as will help Slovak industrial
companies to develop new products which are in demand on the world
market"
To achieve these goals the ministry has been developing a new industrial policy in
discussions with experts from all relevant institutions. Further to modernise the R&D
support, the government is developing measures including diversification of support,
clear selection criteria, an integrated approach to funding, and monitoring of the
use of the money. The government also has favoured repayable loans to grants. In
fact, it wants to use the Innovation Fund and introduces competition in the funding
for industrial research. Hence, it has proposed to improve institutional co-ordination
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