We have a severe problem! This calls for an immediate meeting!

Velenje 1
Originally uploaded by Innovation Journalism.

I have been attending the workshop SLO-INNO-TECH (National Initiative for Improvement of Slovenian Innovation Competitiveness) in Velenje organized by TIA – Public Agency for Technology of the Republic of Slovenia.

The purpose was to find new effective solutions for improvement of the Slovenian innovation system, by establishing a dialogue between decision-makers and representatives of the key actors of the Slovene innovation system (economy, government institutions, research institutions and media).

Lars Eklund from VINNOVA and I was invited as process leaders. We have done this before with TIA in June. (Some photos from that event)

The conclusions were the same this time, as last time. What became very apparent was that all the participants quickly agreed on the problems, but no one were interested in taking the responsibility and do things. Everybody pointed to each other.

Slovenia already has a regional innovation strategy. But most of the participants (including TIA) was not aware of the EU project SLORITTS “Regional Innovation and Technology Transfer Strategies for Slovenia”.

There are very similar conclusions in the EU project’s SWOT analysis compare to the workshop. There are a lot of prominent names in the brochure, but who is responsible for acting? The SLORITTS project is from April 2004. Two and a half years old. Nothing has happened since then.

The problem is not lack of ideas – the problem is lack of action. And no one in Slovenia feel responsible.