2024-09-28 08:21:41
Peshtera is in the top 10 municipalities with the highest development costs
In 2022, BGN 1.270 billion was given to science and development activities in Bulgaria by all state institutions and organizations, companies, universities and non-governmental organizations, but the distribution of these costs is quite uneven.
BGN 938 million of these funds were spent in the capital, while in the second municipality in this ranking – Plovdiv, many times less was given – only BGN 56.116 million. This is shown by the data from a new analysis by the Institute for Market Economics (IPI). , dedicated to the potential for innovation in Bulgaria.
The first edition of this research, published on Thursday, shows that among the top 10 municipalities with the most spending on science and development
there are also a few very small ones
Such is, for example, Peshtera, in which the amount for science places it in the top ten – BGN 7.284 million (see the infographic). This is due to the fact that there is a pharmaceutical company there.
If only the staff involved in science and development are taken into account, the capital is also at a considerable distance from the other municipalities. In Bulgaria, 37 thousand people are directly engaged in scientific and development activities, or work in high-tech production, and 21 thousand of them, i.e. 55% do this in the capital. There are 3,299 in Plovdiv, 2,447 in Varna, 1,167 in Stara Zagora, and under a thousand in Pleven. In the top places in this arrangement they practically fall
the municipalities in which there are higher education institutions
However, the study also makes a ranking according to the ratio of spending on science and development and the number of employees. Here, Etropole ranks first in the country with an average of BGN 60,000 expenses for science per employee, and the capital is in second place with BGN 45,000 per employee.
At the head of this arrangement are often small or medium-sized municipalities such as Peshtera, Silistra, Smolyan, Botevgrad and Troyan, where there are high-tech industries, and the number of employees is significantly smaller than in large municipalities. The national average ratio according to data for 2022 is BGN 34 thousand per employee.
The general arrangement in this ranking is made by economic centers, i.e. in nearby settlements, whose labor market is common. But even in this way, the economic center of Sofia-Pernik-Blagoevgrad comes out far ahead of the others in terms of the potential for the development of innovations, as it receives an index of over a thousand points, i.e. three times more than the second in the ranking – the economic center Plovdiv-Maritsa-Rakovski, and four times more than the third center – Varna-Devnia.
Outside of these three centers, none achieves a score of over 200 points, and the five categorized with a low degree of potential for innovation – Sliven-Yambol, Pazardzhik, Haskovo, Kardjali and Kozloduy – have less than 50 points.
According to the authors of the study, the great advantage of the leaders is mainly the result of their strong superiority in the absolute indicators – scientific articles and their citations, as well as patents, designs and business models in them.
The other criteria on which the ranking was made are related to the share of university graduates among the population, according to which the capital once again comes out on top. The share of the added value of the IT sector in the total added value of the municipality and the number of enrolled doctoral students relative to the population are also taken into account. The total number of criteria is nine.
Its latest edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII)
ranks Bulgaria in 38th place out of 132 analyzed countries,
with the country falling above Turkey and below Latvia. Among the EU countries with a lower result than ours are Poland, Greece, Croatia, Slovakia and Romania.
The analysis highlights the flexibility of the labor market, good IT infrastructure, low taxes and duties, as well as the general positive economic dynamics as key advantages of Bulgaria.
And among the weaknesses are the low investment, especially in venture capital, the business environment, the lack of training and retraining of adults and the relatively small share of global companies in the local market.