The Innovation Start-Up Chamber
The productivity of Estonian companies has grown much more slowly than wages and other input prices. To maintain – or preferably increase – competitiveness, a structural change in the economy and in society as a whole is required. In the long term, innovation is the best method of guaranteeing and boosting competitiveness, even for those countries and companies which are currently already competitive.
The Estonian Employers’ Confederation has put together an innovation working group which we call the Innovation Start-Up Chamber. Its activities are designed to trigger an impulse in innovation to raise the profitability and competitiveness of Estonian companies once again. We have already contributed to the national Research, Development, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Strategy 2021-2035 and to the creation of the Estonian Business and Innovation Agency and the applied research programme planned by the state. In cooperation with Statistics Estonia, we have simplified the research and development survey for entrepreneurs, held numerous meetings with experts in the field of innovation and more.
Priorities in which employers are engaged
Private sector
- Making the private sector the leader in innovation
- Obtaining additional financing from EU R&D funds
- Shared effort between the private and public sectors
- Increasing RDI human resources
Expectations of the state
- A clear understanding and steps for state aid for the three economic revolutions – the product, service and process innovation revolution, the digital revolution and the green transition
- Innovation service centre/agency
- Ensuring the efficient organisation of RDI measurement
- Establishment how applied research should be undertaken and what it should focus on
- Significantly guiding the focus of state investments in RDI