Research and Development ( R&D), has become one of the top priorities of the Strategic Action Plan of the Government; it is a basic avenue for regaining the competitiveness of the economy of the island, through innovation; when applied to commercial use, innovation will lead to new, competitive business units and to the creation of new job Opportunities.
The Government has committed towards the EU (Lisbon Strategy), to spend in R&D, 0,45% of GDP by 2008; this is equivalent to spending circa CYP 35 mln (based on the GDP of 2004).
These funds will be channeled, as it should , in creating the necessary infrastructure (e.g. technological park, Harvard Research Institute, etc.)
Whilst the above are put in place through government actions, the monies which are required to fund research projects would have to be invested mainly by the private sector; from local and foreign investors, international innovation-driven groups, or Venture capital funds, investment banks, i.e. from local and foreign direct investments.
New discoveries and technological breakthroughs and other types of intellectual property creations, when proven at the experimental stage, would have to be developed to a stage of commercial application, if they are to have any commercial value to the researcher or indeed to the economy.
To enable commercial application resulting in new businesses and new products or services, intellectual property rights must be pledged to those willing to invest the necessary product development funds; such funds are both scarce and highly sought for by research groups and governments which compete between them to secure them.
The basic prerequisite to attract direct investment capital, is the ability to offer the necessary assurance that the potential investors will be allowed exclusive usage rights for such a period of time necessary to recuperate their investment and the
Commercial “risk” they have undertaken by investing their capital in the development stage of such innovating research or products. Such exclusive rights take the form of copyright, patents commercial processes, industrial designs, trade marks, trade secrets well described in the “Code of Intellectual Property” recently published by the “Initiative for the Promotion of Research and Competitiveness” (IPRC) in association with the Federation of Employers and Industrialists (OEV).
Therefore the profitable use of an innovation is closely related to the protection of the intellectual property thus created. There are of course other considerations necessary to attract foreign direct investments but these will be dealt with in another article.
* Dinos Kittis is former Minister and the coordinator of IPRC
