Bulgarian science - should one invest in science in Bulgaria and what are
the benefits for companies of cooperation with scientific institutions?
As a share of the Bulgarian domestic product, the funds allocated to
research and development activities in Bulgaria are nearly four times
lower than the average for the EU. The funding of scientific research and
development by business in Bulgaria is about twice as low as the funding
by business in the other member states. That's where the questions come
from. For what reason and is the additional investment in science
necessary?
One of the main challenges facing the Bulgarian scientific community is
to show the business how it can be useful and what the intersection
points of interaction can be. At the moment, assessments of Bulgarian
science are highly controversial, and a large part of representatives of
medium and large businesses do not have an opinion on the quality and
achievements of scientific developments.
Let's look at the companies, 57% of them who have not cooperated with
scientific institutions believe that they did not need them and 28% either
implement foreign developments or claim that there are no
developments in our field. We can combine these three layers, because
the problem, in my opinion, boils down to the fact that there is no
interest, because Bulgarian scientific achievements do not have publicity
around the media, and therefore many people think that they do not
exist. Because of this low level of publicity, society is divided into 2,
people who think that Bulgarians do not participate in the development
of science and people who think that all the professors have left the
country. According to the numbers described above, both groups are
eligible. In combination with the low share allocated to science and the
low publicity of achievements, the end result is detrimental to Bulgarian
scientific development.
Possible tactics for overcoming this invisible crisis around the scientific
sphere can be - greater activity on the part of scientific institutions in the
interaction with business, forums for promoting developments, solutions,
models of interaction. According to a study, 79.2% of Bulgarian
companies would not allocate resources to invest in science. One solution
could be to ease the companies investing in Bulgarian scientific
developments.
As a final note, I would say that there is a huge fog about our scientific
environment and this stops many people and companies from
understanding the benefit and how valuable it really is. However, even
hotels in Sunny Beach can benefit from one or two data analysts to see
which were the best locations or which offers attracted the most
customers.