This paper analyzes the recent economic and innovation trends of the health industries in Poland. The health industries have observed remarkable growth since entering into the EU. While the pharmaceutical industry faces some economic slowdown since 2011, the medtech industry shows substantial dynamism for its small size. The Polish health industry has still much to do to improve its innovation status. However, the observed trend of the innovation dynamics is cause for optimism. Polish firms in the health industries are increasingly innovating and extracting economic results from these innovations.

This working paper aims to present the specifics of innovation in the Polish health industry through the prism of the experiences and opinions of a representative group of 42 companies from both the pharmaceutical and medtech sectors. Through analysis of in-depth interviews, it aims to illuminate the legal, economic and social mechanisms and phenomena that determine innovation in this sector. The survey examines which areas of the Polish health sector are most innovative, the understanding of innovation that prevails in the sector, and the characteristics of R&D activities carried out there. Subsequently, the study explores the general impact of intellectual property, and particularly of patent law on innovation, in the Polish health sector. Finally, it surveys the other economic and legal instruments currently stimulating innovation and how legal regulations and governmental policy could be modified to create an optimal pro-innovation environment. The conclusions include short legal and factual background of innovation in the Polish health sector, the summarized results of the conducted analysis and final comments concerning the level and culture of innovation within the examined industry.

The Polish health related patenting increased rapidly in the last decade making Poland the top CEE economy. Still, most of the filings remain only national, making Poland just a small share of the EU total and relatively less specialized than other EU countries. A limited number of higher education applicants accounted for 42 percent of patents and utility models, with a clear specialization in pharmaceutical technologies. Most private applicants were SMEs and individuals specialized in medtech. The innovative activity is concentrated in a few provinces and cities. Polish health related innovation is a collaborative although mostly domestic effort. Poland’s pharmaceutical specialization is on non-biological preparations (42%) and new chemical compounds (31%); while the medtech specialization is in diagnosis and surgery (34%) and prostheses, stents and orthopedic (18%).

Sustainability, Technology and Innovation 4.0 is a holistic perception and analysis of innovation at the level of public organisations, innovation in industry and innovation in HR. Its chapters collectively present a thesis that Innovation 4.0 signals a technological revolution that has the opportunity to prevent environmental degradation and, in particular, to stop climate warming, the effects of which may disrupt the process of sustainable development. Uniquely, this edited book offers a comprehensive and multi-faceted examination of Innovation 4.0, fulfilling methodical, empirical and utilitarian goals. The methodological objective is to present tools that allow the identification, analysis and assessment of the relationship between Innovation 4.0 and inspiration that will carry society towards a new economic and social order. Its empirical aim is to enable the analysis and evaluation of the role of public organisations, innovation in industry and innovation in HR in the process of building sustainable development of the global environment. The book’s utilitarian goal is a recommendation for global organisations of Innovation 4.0 as an instrument to stimulate an innovative economy. This is a high-level research book aimed at postgraduates, MBA students, researchers and academics from business colleges and universities, and may also provide a valuable strategic perspective for business executives.

Firm productivity and export decisions are closely related to innovation activity. Innovation may play a more important role in the decision to start exporting, and successful exporting may drive process innovation. This suggests that the causality between innovation and exporting may run in both directions. Using detailed microdata from innovation surveys, industrial production surveys, and trade information for Slovenian firms in 1996-2002, we investigate the bidirectional causal relationship between firm innovation and export activity. We find no evidence for the hypothesis that either product or process innovations increase the probability of becoming a first-time exporter, but we do find evidence in both the innovation survey and the industrial production survey that exporting leads to productivity improvements. These, however, are likely to be related to process rather than product innovations, and are observed only in a sample of medium and large first-time exporters. This finding makes a case in favour of the learning-by-exporting hypothesis by demonstrating that these learning effects from exporting occur through the mechanism of process innovation enhancing firm technical efficiency.

When Poland and Ukraine introduced their political, social and economic system reforms at the beginning of the 1990s, both economies were at a similar level of economic development (GDP $9,500 per capita). However, in 2018, Ukrainian GDP per capita had remained at the same levels since 1991, while in Poland, it had increased significantly, to more than $27,000 per capita. This book assesses the reasons for the growing gap between the level of economic development in Ukraine and Poland. It examines the course of events and evaluates the effectiveness of the system transformations, both in the context of the economy, as a whole, and in individual regions (Polish ‘voivodeships’ (provinces) and Ukrainian ‘oblasts’). It also analyzes the consequences of the 2008–2009 Ukrainian-Russian gas conflict and 2013–2014 Euromaidan events for the Ukrainian economy. Additionally, the authors offer an insight into the migration movements, which have recently been observed in Poland and Ukraine. This is the first comprehensive, comparative analysis concerning the spatial diversification of economic development in these two countries, and the authors highlight the ways in which these reforms have proved effective in Poland and hardly effective in Ukraine. This analysis helps to identify the basic interrelations between the core macroeconomic variables at the regional level and the impact of political events from both a national and regional perspective. The book will appeal to academics, researchers and policy makers interested in the economic and political changes in these two countries, in a comparative setting and on national and regional levels, as well as those working on issues of EU integration.

This report reviews the important role of medicines in health sytems, describes recent trends in pharmaceutical expenditure and financing, and summarises the approaches used by OECD countries to determine coverage and pricing.

This monograph presents the experience in the implementation of smart specialization strategies (S3) from multilevel policy governance, as well as from the bottom-up perspectives of firms, clusters, and networks in selected European countries. The presented research focuses on relevance and feasibility of the S3 adoption, emphasizing the importance of linking policy considerations with partnerships at lower governance levels. The major contribution of the presented research rests in theoretical implications and practical recommendations relevant for the implementation of regional S3 in the European context, with the possibility of place-based adoption in other environments. The book is also valuable for synthesizing the most recent advancements in smart specialization as a policy concept and the concept of transformation and growth for territorial units and economic entities. This book aims to further diffuse and expand the academic community’s learning of the new S3 approach in Europe and beyond. The book will be of interest and useful to the academic community of researchers and doctoral students focused on regional innovation development and related policy, as well as on entrepreneurship, networks, and clusters. Public sector professionals dealing with regional development, regional innovation policies, and industrial transformation will also benefit from its content.

The “digital economy” is a conceptual umbrella referring to markets, organizations and their networks that are based on digital technologies, communication, data processing and e-commerce. It is multidimensional and its dynamic structure must be analysed from various dimensions, such as economic – changes in the nature of resources, production factors and economic processes; technological – technological progress viewed from a macroeconomic perspective vs. technological innovation viewed from a microeconomic perspective; regulatory – challenges facing regulators, new risks affecting the institutional order; and sociological – changes in society’s functioning principles, attitudes towards work and human relations. The purpose of this book is to analyse the effectiveness of digital technologies as well as the fundamental factors that contribute to technological progress in the long run. It also examines structural and qualitative shifts in economies and societies. It investigates many research questions, such as the gap between the level of digital economic development in European Union countries; digital transformation and its impact on workplace skills development patterns; and also the legal framework for data as resource. The book approaches these issues from a multidisciplinary perspective, from law to economics and sociology. It focuses on definitional discussions, the measurement challenges, drivers for digital transition, the impact on labour relations, digital skills and education, data reuse and data extractivism. This is a comprehensive introduction to the different contexts from which the digital economy can be addressed, offering an innovative method for studying this complex phenomenon, and as such, it will be a valuable resource for students, scholars and researchers across a range of disciplines.

Pharmaceutical giants have been doubling their investments in drug development, only to see new drug approvals to remain constant for the past decade. This book investigates and highlights a set of proactive strategies. The authors focus on three sources of pharmaceutical innovation: new management methods, new technologies, and new forms of internationalization. Their findings are illustrated in the case of the Swiss pharmaceutical industry, the leading exporter of pharmaceutical products in percentage of GDP, and some of its main pharmaceutical firms such as Novartis and Hoffmann-La Roche.