OREANDA-NEWS. In collaboration with Poland’s Ministry of Economic Development, the World Bank designed and tested a new approach - called an “entrepreneurial discovery process (EDP)” - to help the authorities shift from a top-down to a bottom-up innovation policy that engages the private sector, science, and public administration, as part of the so-called “research and innovation smart specialization strategy-RIS3”.

The proposed EDP comprised:  (i) in-depth firm interviews, (ii) “Smart Labs” – business-science focus groups, (iii) crowdsourcing, and (iv) innovation maps.

The project should help Poland’s government to more efficiently invest 10 billion euro into innovation by 2020, mostly funded by the European Union.

The project helped produce new information about the needs, strengths and ambitions of the enterprise sector, identify companies with a large innovation-based growth potential, so-called “champions”, and modernize the public support system to provide support better tailored to firm needs.