Cooperation between scientists and entrepreneurs of Zemgale [Latvia]
2019
Kronberga, G., Latvia Univ. of Life Sciences and Technologies, Jelgava (Latvia) | Ratkevica, M., Latvia Univ. of Life Sciences and Technologies, Jelgava (Latvia)
Collaboration between scientists and entrepreneurs is a prerequisite for knowledge transfer and place development, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to develop or improve production and service delivery, as well as quality, by finding innovative approaches to common practice. Scientists, facing new challenges and solutions to them, have the opportunity to showcase their research capacity as well as to introduce stakeholders and the general public with their ideas and solutions. Using a qualitative approach, the authors focused on one of the planning regions of Latvia − Zemgale. The aim of the article is to investigate the problems and solutions of cooperation between entrepreneurs and scientists in Zemgale from the perspective of the involved parties. The tasks are related to the theoretical characterization of scientists and entrepreneurs, as well as cooperation, taking into account the specifics of Zemgale region. The results show that scientists, Zemgale entrepreneurs and experts of the Technology Transfer Centre of Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies are directly involved in the implementation of cooperation between scientists and entrepreneurs in Zemgale region. Collaboration is based on the achievement of specific objectives; and the promotion of cooperation in different scenarios varies. It should also be concluded that there are several problems in the attempted cooperation between scientists and entrepreneurs, but the most important are interrelated: the knowledge brokerage in Zemgale region is not one of the priorities; the number of scientists and the quantity of technical equipment are not always sufficient to meet the demand for scientific services; and entrepreneurs are little informed of scientific services, scientific capacity in Zemgale region, therefore they are cautious at the planning stage of cooperation.
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