Grey Book of innovation – 45 recommendations for developing innovational entrepreneurship
Creating the conditions for cooperation between science and businesses through scholarship-based doctorates, simplifying the import of unregistered medical devices for research and development purposes, and enabling the storage of local government data in the cloud are three key recommendations of the latest edition of NALED's Gray Book of Innovation for 2024. It is a specialized publication that offers the competent institutions clear guidelines and proposed solutions for administrative obstacles faced by innovators in order to strengthen the domestic innovation system.
- This second edition brings us 45 specific recommendations, of which 12 are new, for the amendment of as many as 52 regulations, which should lead to the improvement of business conditions for innovators. Key ideas for making the recommendations were gathered through consultations with startups, researchers, representatives of the academic community and sector associations - said Dušan Vasiljević, Competitiveness and Investments Director in NALED.
According to him, the Gray Book of Innovation seeks to contribute to our further improved ranking on the Global Innovation Index, through clearly defined guidelines for overcoming challenges, on which Serbia this year made a leap forward by two positions, taking 53rd place out of a total of 132 countries.
Of the 60 recommendations from the first edition of the Gray Book of Innovation, which was published in April 2022, a total of nine were resolved, while progress towards resolution was recorded for another six. The Ministry of Science, Technological Development and Innovation proved to be the most open to the needs of innovators, with three fully resolved, two partially resolved and one recommendation with notable progress.
- The Rulebook on the Register of Subjects of the National Innovation System defines in more detail the notion of startups and business angels, anesd determin the conditions for their entry in the Register. Also, it was specified that associations can acquire the status of service providers to innovators, and the Ethical Guidelines are an important step towards regulating the increasingly topical issue of responsible use of artificial intelligence. The Ministry also facilitated trainings for public servants on the subject of Partnership for Innovation, and they initiated work on creating a portal for connecting science, business and the state - explained Vasiljević.
The second place is held by the Ministry of the Interior, which enabled the testing of autonomous vehicles on the roads, as well as regulated the use of electric scooters, while the third place belongs to the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure, which facilitated the installation of charging stations for electric and hybrid vehicles on public roads, and prescribed that planning documents cannot introduce arbitrary restrictions at the level of local governments for the installation of mobile radio base stations.
- NALED, which marked 2023 as the year of innovation, will actively work on advocating all recommendations, and provide support to competent institutions in their implementation and monitoring, starting from the first day of publication of the Gray Book of Innovations - concluded Vasiljević and announced the extension of cooperation with the company Philip Morris, which will continue to support innovators in Serbia in the next three years.
The Grey Book of Innovation was created as part of the StarTech program, which is entirely financed by a private company - Philip Morris. The three-year program aims to transform the traditional economy into a digital and high-tech one, through direct financial and professional support to small and medium-sized enterprises, work on improving the conditions for the application of innovations and the promotion of innovators and Serbia as an investment destination.
