Estonia - National Programme Information

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National policies

Policy mix to increase private investment in R&D; Grants to public sector research institutions; Strengthen and create centres/networks of excellence; Developing public-private partnerships for R&D; Improving R&D co-operation and technology transfer; Promotion of R&D services to enterprises(esp. SMEs);Grants to support business R&D, and R&D collaboration; R&D related services to enterprises; Promoting regional research-driven clusters; Raise interest of the young in science and technology; Enhancing the mobility of researchers.

 

Priority areas

No research priority areas are set for the bulk funding, but are sometimes determined separately within the individual measures. RTDI measures are based on the principles worked out in the Estonian Research and Development Strategy ‘Knowledge-based Estonia’ 2002-2006 where three priority research areas are presented as follows: user-friendly information technologies and development of the information society, biomedicine, materials technologies. No specific research priorities are established individually by Enterprise Estonia.

 

Funding organisations

The two central organisations in Estonian R&D policy are the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, and the Ministry of Education and Research. They are responsible for nearly all research funding streams and horizontal policies. Both Ministries have special Divisions working on innovation policy and research policy, respectively. These Divisions are fairly small (employing about 4-6 people each) and face frequent staff turnover like most of the public sector in Estonia. At the same time, the scope of their responsibilities is extensive, which is why they are happy to include their implementing agencies and other experts into any process or project they work on.

 

Both Ministries have their advisory committees for policy development - Science Policy Committee for the Ministry of Education and Research, and Innovation Policy Committee for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications. These Committees include experts from academic sector, industry and public sector. The Committees meet on an ad hoc basis upon the invitation of the respective Ministers. The Committees usually advise the respective policy Divisions of the Ministries on strategic issues, where the Ministries want some expert opinion. The actual workload of the Committees depends largely on the preferences of the specific Minister and the policy Division. The administering agency is Enterprise Estonia. The monitoring agency is the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.

 

Programme information

Prior to the R&D financing programme the R&D projects financing activities were ongoing by the former Innovation Foundation (existed until 2000). The principles and financing criteria of the activities were thoroughly analysed by local and foreign experts and the new programme document with amendments was designed in 2001. There was no clear system or set out criteria designed for the preliminary programme. Enterprises were mostly given loans and R&D institutions got mostly grants. Presently loans are not provided, support for feasibility studies, applied R&D and product development projects are offered to both R&D institutions and enterprises. Ca 2/3 of the programme funding is given to enterprises.

 

 

Ministry of Scientific Affairs

Mr. Urmas Lips

Tel: +3725030045

Email: urmas.lips@emara.ee

URL: www.mkm.ee
URL: www.eas.ee

 

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