The nature of Hungarian spin-off enterprises

During the past decade, the competitiveness and economic growth of the of the EU fell significantly below the level of its greatest economic competitor, the USA (EC [2004]). In the meanwhile, the Far-Eastern global economic region performed variously, mostly influenced by the economic performance of the two other major global economic blocks. So the EU announced to make efforts to increase its pace of growth and he level of employment, especially focusing on supporting innovation (EC [2000]). Though the integration of the economic systems has been going on for decades (the Economic and Monetary Union), its effects fell far behind the expected level. However another factor emerged from the economic reality: the so called European Paradox (Cresson-Bangemann [1995]). , according to whichthe results of RTDI activities are a lot less utilized than in the USA, despite the large number of excellent European results published. One of the main causes of this phenomenon could be, that the innovation system in the EU is more in the state sector. And presumably this is responsible for a significant part of the missing European economic growth. Mapping the innovation system, scholars identified an important element of the knowledge utilization processes: the spin-off enterprise. EU policy makers decided to promote their operation by constructing a suitable legal environment for their existence, and help their creation and operation by other possible means. However for this cause, the situation needed to be surveyed. The European Commission supported the work of a research consortium on the INDICOM project, which conducted an international survey of high-tech spin-off enterprises and the technology transfer organizations (TTOs), which “gave birth” to them. These results will be analyzed in this present article.