Prague, Oct 1 (CTK) – Czech science lags behind in applied research, the cooperation between industrial firms and researchers is insufficient, and an integrated system of science control and financing is lacking, according to an annual report on science that the government discussed on Wednesday night.
Last year, science received 35 billion crowns from public sources, including 26 billion from the state budget divided in 11 budgetary chapters and European subsidies.
But this system of financing is complicated and chaotic, according to the analysis of the research, development and innovations in the country in 2014.
“The fragmentation of the system is the biggest threat to the future of research in the country,” the analysis says.
The Czech Republic has quality scientific facilities and top experts and the quality of scientific publications is improving and there is more international cooperation, the analysis concludes.
Though the total expenditures on science are close to the EU average, the Czech Republic shows rather bad results in the number of international patents and the cooperation between the public and private sectors.
Eva Sykova, deputy chairwoman of the government council for research, said neither cooperation with the private sector nor international patents are included in the assessment of Czech researchers.
The assessment is based on the number of publications that researchers issued, on their impact factor and foreign reactions on their work, Sykova said.
Deputy Prime Minister for Research Pavel Belobradek (Christian Democrats, KDU-CSL) said laws and the assessment of scientific institutions must be changed to improve the cooperation between the public research and business.
At the same time, the investments of the Czech private sector in research are markedly lower than in other countries, Belobradek said.
The authors of the analysis write that the results in applied research are markedly worse than in countries that invest the same money or even less.
In 2013, the total expenses on research, development and innovations were nearly 78 billion crowns and 92,000 people worked in this sector, 55 percent of whom were researchers.
In the past few years, eight large scientific centres and about 40 regional research centres were built in the Czech Republic thanks to European subsidies.
($1=24.266 crowns)
