Bank Millennium : Innovation is improving in Polish Voivodeships – says Millennium Index report

4 Voivodeships remain innovation potential leaders: Mazowieckie, Małopolskie, Dolnośląskie and Pomorskie. These are regions with a dominant part being played by urban agglomerations: Warsaw, Kraków, Wrocław and Tricity. Lately the innovation gap between Mazowieckie Voivodeship and the three other regions narrowed noticeably.

Catching up with Mazowieckie Voivodeship comes first of all from the fact that Małopolskie, Dolnośląskie and Pomorskie Voivodeships have been dynamically increasing their R&D spending vs. GDP in relative terms faster than the leader and the number of persons employed in research and development has also been growing fast. This is also attributable to strong growth of innovative industries and innovative services in these regions - Adam Berent, Director of the Rating Department in Bank Millennium and one of the authors of the Report, said. An important growth engine of these Voivodeships are also their vibrant special economic zones - which are successfully attracting capital. An important factor influencing reduction of the distance to Mazowieckie Voivodeship are also infrastructure development, both transport as well as educational and increasingly vibrantly developing centres of innovation and enterprise such as technology and innovation transfer centres - the expert added.

Millennium Index - Regional Innovation Potential 2017

Compared with last year almost all Voivodeships, except Podkarpackie, Łódzkie, Śląskie, Lubuskie and Opolskie, reached a higher average of results from 6 analysed factors comprising innovation potential. Interestingly enough, the biggest growth of innovation potential in a matter of a few years, was attained by Lubelskie Voivodeship. The main reason for this Voivodeship's progress is the number of patents issued, which increased more than three times in the course of 5 years. Good results in the ranking were also attained by Podkarpackie Voivodeship. It saw a leap in labour productivity. This results from the region's policy of investing in innovative sectors of the economy; especially in the aerospace industry.

Millennium Index 2017 and 2016 - comparison of results

Lowest on the ranking list were the following Voivodeships: Świętokrzyskie, Warmińsko-Mazurskie and Lubuskie. This is caused first of all by low labour productivity, low R&D spending vs. GDP and a low number of persons employed in research and development as well as the lowest number of university students and issued patents in Poland. This is also attributable to relatively low industrialisation of these regions and low development of the services sector as well as transport, educational and R&D infrastructure.

Millennium Index 2017 - 6 criteria of innovation

'Millennium Index - Regional Innovation Potential 2017' is an in-house report prepared by Bank Millennium's analysts with use of latest data available from Central Statistical Office of Poland and the Pont Info database. Scores on the ranking list resulted from adding-up results in 6 categories, which according to the Bank's experts affect regional innovation potential the most: labour productivity, value-added rate, R&D spending, number of university students, number of persons employed in R&D and number of patents issued. This year's edition of the 'Millennium Index' was supplemented with an analysis of Voivodships' results in 2010 - 2015 as well as inter-sector comparisons.

The entire report is available on: https://www.bankmillennium.pl/about-the-bank/press-centre