POMERANIAN SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY PARK- GDYNIA INNOVATION CENTER
The region's major industries include:
- maritime economy,
- oil and chemicals,
- machines,
- construction,
- food processing,
- furniture making,
- electrical, energy,
- clothing, agriculture,
- fishery and trade.
The service sector is well developed, especially in tourism, finance and insurance. Alongside the traditional industries is the hi-tech industry with its fast growing ICT and IT sectors. Pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries are booming. Pomorskie's universities and research centres are a major contributor to the development of hi-tech industries.
There are a number of business support organisations in the region, such as business support centres, regional development agencies, chambers of commerce, employers' associations, technology transfer centres and science and technology parks. Their objective is to improve the competitiveness of Pomorskie's SMEs by providing a wide range of high quality service (advice, training, information, finance).
HISTORY
The Pomeranian Science and Technology Park (PSTP) in Gdynia, an idea primarily inspired by professor Anna J. Podhajska (1938 - 2006), was created in the year 2001 as a joined initiative of the Pomeranian Technology Centre association and the City of Gdynia. The task of managing the development of the park and the concentrated within it innovative projects was handed over to the Gdynia Innovation Centre, a budgetary unit under the auspices of the City Hall.
The main target for the PSTP is to concentrate all kinds of activities, crucial for economic development of Pomeranian Region as well as to stimulate co-operation between universities and companies, especially in the field of technology transfer and development of entrepreneurship. The main beneficiaries of the whole idea are regional entrepreneurs and universities. This leads to growth of economic indicators in the Pomeranian region, which of course is also beneficial to the whole regional society.
In the course of its six year long existence the Pomeranian Science&Technology Park (PSTP) has managed to develop a modern infrastructure designed to serve as a basis for innovative entrepreneurial activities. PSTP mission is to identify promising innovative ideas, supporting and encouraging commercialization of innovative technologies.
The Park staff (23 persons) utilizes its experience and expertise to provide new business perspectives for companies, a favorable infrastructure and a creative environment through the services and consulting. PSTP assists in the creation and strengthening of relationships between Polish and foreign business partners as well as R&D and business related institutions. In this role, PSTP acts as accelerator of innovation and facilitator of growth. It promotes innovation and achievements of PSTP inhabitants as well as sustainable business development.
Within the national and international cooperation and projects, PSTP enforces and builds various relations between institutions and organizations connected with innovation and technology transfer.
The offer of the PSTP is targeted at small and medium enterprises, especially in the biotechnology and environmental protection, ICT, industrial design sectors. The Park is also engaged in cooperation with universities, technical universities, centers of technology transfer, other parks and other institutions connected with entrepreneurship supporting and innovations.
PSTP manages and operates a 13 000 m2 and has perspective of new 40 000 m2 of premises. In march 2007 in PSTP operates 60 companies (biotechnology, environmental protection, ICT, industrial design branches). In the PSTP BIO module operates now 15 companies from the biotechnology and environmental protection sectors.
BIOLOGY SECTOR
The located in PSTP Biotechnological Laboratory - Bio-Lab Centre serves as a strategic element of PSTP - the infrastructure which Gdynia is delighted to offer to entrepreneurs and scientists dealing with biotechnology and environment protection issues.
The goal of The Bio-Lab Centre is to provide a wide range of reliable research, needed by or obligatory for companies. BioLab Centre is a place dedicated to biotechnological, biochemical,
microbiological, molecular biology, environmental and chemical analyses, research and investigation, to both the local scientific community as well as biomedical companies worldwide.
The Bio-Lab Centre welcomes every opportunity to interact and cooperate in the field of general and applied bio-research.
The Bio-Lab Centre is open for various projects associated with education and diverse workshop activities addressed to those intrigued phenomena in the field of microbiology, molecular biology and chemistry. Modern education is inseparable from its practical application - this is why the Bio-Lab Centre welcomes school groups and students to conduct individual experiments, offering a wide range of unique scientific equipment and professional supervision.
EXPERIENCE
Gdynia Innovation Centre - GCI (operator of PSTP) is experienced in the various projects, connected among others with networking cooperation. From year 2006 GCI is in project www.innowacje.gdynia.pl which concerns clusters initiatives of biotechnology and ICT companies in the Region.
In the project GCI is responsible for organizing branch meetings and strengthening networking cooperation between companies in the Region. Within the Interreg IIIA Programme GCI develop two projects concerning interactive education (Experimentarium www.experyment.gdynia.pl) and strengthening of cooperation between Polish and Lithuanian companies (Baltinno www.baltinno.pl).
GCI also cooperates with Intercollegiate Faculty of Biotechnology - University of Gdańsk - Medical University of Gdańsk, which is active partner of ScanBalt Project. There is also the Pomeranian Innovation and Entrepreneurship Incubator that acts within the PSTP and is a member of the network Gate2Growth. There is expected the positive response form the IASP network to accept the PSTP as its full member during next weeks.
OTHER TECHNOLOGY PARKS IN THE REGION
Gdansk Science and Technology Park: location in the centre of Gdansk on the plot of 3 ha, in the direct vicinity of universities: Gdansk University of Technology, Medical University of Gdansk, University of Gdansk is still under construction. There will be a floor surface of the facility - ca 27,000 sq. m.
The idea of Gdansk Science and Technology Park is:
- Huge science and technology park in the Pomeranian region closely located to Gdansk University of Technology
- Designed for start-ups and young high-technology oriented and knowledge-based small and medium size enterprises (SMEs)
- Location for technology companies, R&D entities and support services
- Meeting place for representatives of science, modern industries and innovative entrepreneurship.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
In the future his Park is planning to hale such functions as: High-tech Start-ups Incubator, Technology Transfer centre, Centre for Advanced Technologies, Conference and Training centre, a small hotel for researchers.
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
There are many universities to choose from. The most popular subjects are management, finance and banking, law, social sciences and philologies (English, German, Roman - French, Italian and Spanish, Russian and Scandinavian). The most popular engineering subjects are electronics, IT, telecommunications, chemistry, electro-technology and automatics, and architecture.
In Sopot there is also a school for foreigners where they can learn Polish (Sopot Polish Language School for Foreigners).
The Pomeranian community is well educated and with such varied educational institutions the area is educationally highly differentiated. The prospective investor will find here all required specialists - managers, lawyers, economists, communication engineers, maritime transport engineers, as well as plant and machine operators and assemblers.
To potential investors one of the main advantages of the region should be good access to educated and skilled human resources. The Central Statistical Office published in 2005 that 28 universities in the region provided higher education for of 95,665 students. In 2005 there were 17,773 graduates in the region The biggest university is Gdańsk University (33,000 students) followed by Gdańsk University of Technology (17,500 students), The Pomeranian Teacher's University in Słupsk (9,900 students) and The Maritime Academy in Gdynia (8,200 students). In 2002 there were 580,600 people with a secondary and college background (33.9 percent of the population).
The biggest university in the region is the Gdańsk University and the second largest and also the oldest in Pomerania is the Gdańsk University of Technology. The human resource reservoirs for the main economic sectors are also: Maritime Academy in Gdynia, Navy University, Medical Academy of Gdańsk, Academy of Physical Education and Sport in Gdańsk and also private universities in banking, finances and administration.
There are also many schools in the region which provide training and education to skilled workers in various sectors and qualification profiles (assembly workers, electricians, butchers, mechanics and CNC operators).
A growing number of people have good command of foreign languages. Foreign language education begins as early as in primary school. The school curriculum includes at least one foreign language, mainly English.
INCUBATOR FACILITIES
There are also some institutions that guide the incubators for new established companies:
- Pomeranian Innovation and Entrepreneurship Incubator- as an initiative of our organisation (2 years support for young, innovative companies: office space, consulting in EU funds, law, classes of Business English etc.); with above 20 companies, www.ppnt.gdynia.pl - this project is open for all Polish and foreign companies, not only from the Pomeranian Region.
- Microincubator of Entrepreneurship in Sopot (6 companies established by people form Sopot) http://www.inkubator.sopot.pl/main.php?fid=244&pg=4&id_lang=0&width
- Academic Incubator- Gdańsk- at the University of Gdańsk http://www.inkubatory.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=92
- Academic Incubator of Economy guided by the Technical University, Gdańsk (with 2 companies);
- Gdańsk Foundation of Enterpreneurship- STARTER -project creating the incubator till 2010- www.gfp.com.pl
SUPPORT FOR BUSINESS START-UPS
We can find a lot of institutions that offer for SMEs different services. There are some ngos that support people in creating their idea for the business f.e. Fundacja Gospodarcza in Gdynia (www.fungo.com.pl), Association of the Free Entrepreneurship www.swp.gda.pl in Gdańsk.
The young companies can get there some hours of free of charge consultancy, possibility of taking part in different EU projects supporting new established SMEs. At the same time our organisation thanks for example to the project www.innowacje.gdynia.pl gives to new SMEs a lot of kinds of trainings, brench companies' meetings.
Other institutions- such f.e. Agency of the Pomerania Development proposes to people that want to establish their business
IMPORTANT EVENTS, FAIRS AND CONGRESSES
- INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC FORUM, GDYNIA http://www.forum.gdynia.pl/index_en.html
- AMBERIF International Fair of Amber, Jewellery and Gemstones.
- Ambermart Fair, which is organised to facilitate the sale of finished amber jewellery and silver jewellery with amber presented by domestic and international producers to customers from home and abroad
- Technicon Innovation Industral Technology, Science and Innovation Fair
- U-EXPO Education Fair
- Baltic Festival of Science
- International Workshop on Functional and Nanostructured Materials, FNMA
- Gdańsk Work Fairs
- Seminar on Business and New Technology- NETVISION - www.netvision.pl
MOST IMPORTANT SERVICES
- Euro Office Basic Service (Category 1, 2 or 3)
- Euro-Expo
- Consulting services
- etc.
We provide supportive and creative environment for business
The main idea of PSTP is to concentrate several factors related to companies development. These factors will support business as well as technology transfer while using the synergy effects. PSTP is characterised mainly by:
- Co-operation of numerous entities - educational centres, research and development centres, business entities, counselling, financial and training institutions
- Special organisational, law and financial conditions
- Supporting the transfer of technology from the R&D centres towards the industry
Other Facilities:
- Conference Complex,
- Bar Bistro & Caffeteria,
- Meetings & Relax Zones.
60 companies are nowadays conducting their business on the grounds of PSTP. We can propos them the following services:
Pre-incubation services |
Business planning |
Training |
Accounting and legal services |
Secretarial support (also video conferences) |
Market research |
Networking |
IT support, broadband, etc. |
ICT cluster support |
International partner searching |
Mentoring/coaching in preparation |
Help with raising finance, seed and venture capital |
Virtual incubation in preparation |
Other, please specify: |
- rental services: conference rooms, small studios, meeting common areas etc. - - consultancy in all fields tailored to the company needs |
- biotechnological lab services at preferential prices for the Incubator companies ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - bar&restaurant space - prototyping area |
LINKS TO MOST IMPORTANT SERVICES
www.woj-pomorskie.pl
Official website
www.arpg.gda.pl
Economic Development Organisation of the region
www.gdansk.piph.pl
Chamber of Commerce
www.gdynia.pl , www.gdansk.pl , www.sopot.pl
Webistes of Gdynia, Gdańsk, Sopot Cities