As a region that has recognized its strengths, is the Pilsen Region succeeding in the field of science and innovation and becoming an important player in Europe? Deputy Governor for IT and European Affairs Martin Rybár believes that we definitely have what it takes.
At the end of year 2024, you became a father for the second time. From the perspective of a councilor for IT and European affairs, what does the Pilsen Region, where your child was born, look like?
I see a region that is missing the boat in many ways, but at the same time a region with enormous potential. And I would like us to prepare it as best we can for future generations. So that we can pass it on to our children in better condition than we received it. But don’t take this as a criticism of the previous regional leadership, because this also applies to the state administration, cities… Each generation inherits better technologies brought about by civilizational progress, but at the same time, things are always in worse shape in terms of nature, business, or industry, for example. That is why I would like to pass on the region in better condition. So that future generations can fully utilize both their potential and the potential of the region.
It almost seems as if we have begun a SWOT analysis of the Pilsen Region. Can we continue with it and look at its strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities?
All of us who live in the Pilsen Region are clear about what its greatest weakness and, at the same time, its greatest strength is. It is its location halfway between Prague and Bavaria. In my opinion, we do not yet know how to profit from this rather than lose out, and while our ancestors knew how to do this in a completely different era, we are unable to cope with open borders and increased mobility of people, in short, with the fact that people today are not rooted in one place. I am a conservative person who likes it when people don’t need to run away. But it is natural that they leave in search of a better life, better opportunities, and I would like us to create those opportunities here. Of course, they can earn more in Germany, and probably in Prague too, but that doesn’t mean we can’t offer something that outweighs the financial aspect, while salaries are being equalized.
I would like to return to the fact that the Pilsen Region is missing the boat. The world is changing perhaps too quickly for us to be able to respond effectively with the rigid structures of state administration and often local government. In this world, our region is falling behind in science, research, and innovation rankings, and I hope that we will be able to do something about this. I have no illusions that we will suddenly jump up the rankings. My task is to stop the decline and prepare the ground for growth. Whether that growth will be rapid or otherwise will depend on other circumstances, such as the amount of resources we can secure.
What can be done to prepare the ground?
My opinion is that, as a politician, I cannot tell entrepreneurs how to do business, nor can I tell research institutions how to do science. Primarily, I want to go to them so they can tell me what I can do for them, how to support their business and their growth, and then promote what is in the public interest and in the interest of the region. It may seem simple. The region has a relatively large budget, but to a large extent, it is money that comes to us from the state, and we just distribute it further. We often invest our own money in so-called concrete and iron. I want to get as much as possible to support meaningful projects at the level of research, development, and innovative companies, which I believe are growth indicators.
That is your idea. How might it look in practice?
For example, we will launch the concept of business breakfasts as widely as possible, where we will meet with companies that create added value and are interesting in the field of science and innovation. Once or twice a month, I want to meet with a selected, thematically grouped group, talk to them, and get feedback. In the Pilsen Region, we should not just do research for the sake of research. For us, with our industrial structure, applied research should be of particular interest, i.e., the point where industry and research come together and interesting solutions are created.
In addition, we will also try to meet with our foreign partner regions, of which we have a relatively large number. Although we have historically cooperated with some of them, there has been no contact for many years. I think that when we approach them with an offer to connect at the level of companies and research institutions, they will see a clear benefit.
From my time at the Ministry of the Environment, I know how some economic segments praise business forums and the fact that someone helps them establish contacts. The region is too small to lobby for specific projects, but I think connecting individual companies and institutions is exactly what is expected of it. The previous leadership already took some steps in this direction, which we can now build on. For example, we joined the European Semiconductor Association.
The impetus came from the University of West Bohemia.
Yes, because the university as such cannot be a member of the association of regions, so it turned to the region. The management at the time approved the idea in the council, and we completed the entire process with the conclusion that membership is beneficial for both the university and the Pilsen region. Individual information is exchanged, and we are guaranteed the opportunity to be heard and play an active role at the national and European levels.
Returning to your role as someone who wants to connect the research sector with the business sector, do we have everything we need in the Pilsen Region from this perspective? Is there anything left to connect, is anything important missing?
I would say that there is still work to be done, although the situation is significantly better than it was ten or fifteen years ago. Research institutions have rightly shifted their focus from heavy engineering to modern industry, and so has the university, which supports electrical engineering and IT, which is exactly what the region really needs today. We have companies founded by people who came here to study from elsewhere and stayed here, and we also have the potential to attract companies from other regions. As a region, we also have an incubation and acceleration program, which helps interesting companies that are not yet able to sell themselves. Our advantage may also be our connection to the historic industrial region and the fact that we have logistics and manufacturing capacities.
Would it be ideal if, thanks to these facilities in the Pilsen Region, an innovative idea and ultimately an entire product were created?
Not necessarily. We don’t have to want to manufacture from start to finish; we can invent a product and manufacture part of it, and the rest can be manufactured elsewhere, perhaps adapted for a given market. And, of course, it can also work the other way around, when we can adapt someone else’s product to our needs. But for that, we need to retain the necessary capacities in the region that will play with the products, invent them, and improve them.
This will probably be the case with the aforementioned semiconductors and chips.
I don’t think anyone in our region has the ambition to create a huge chip research center that would compete with Silicon Valley. Let’s not kid ourselves, we don’t have the finances or other resources for that. But we can choose specific industries and develop chips specifically for them. We probably won’t manufacture them ourselves, as we don’t have the raw materials, and it would be difficult to import them and reorient production, but if we design the chips and someone else manufactures them, we can implement them in autonomous vehicles, for example, which is an obvious choice, as the automotive industry has always been strong in our region. The same applies to other industries that have historically existed here, whether it be turbines for nuclear power plants or anything else.
The idea that the Pilsen region will become an important player in Europe may not be so far-fetched.
One of the biggest pitfalls of Czech thinking about regional development is that we often don’t know what we want, so we do everything so generally that we end up with general things like assembly. But we need to choose one specific area and develop it. For example, Daikin is unlikely to start manufacturing wind turbines in addition to heat pumps, but will focus on what it does well and what it can develop further. The same applies to the Pilsen Region. It is not a solution to support everything from heavy industry to small engineering and so on. The right way is to support truly innovative projects. Do one thing and do it well. The automotive sector is an obvious choice, but it could be any other sector. Of course, I can’t come up with this myself, nor can any official at the regional office or anyone at the Regional Development Agency. The impetus must come from industry and research.
The regional innovation center that is currently being discussed could be a significant help.
I am going to submit the establishment of an innovation center for the Pilsen Region to our council, and I believe that we could see it come into being this year. Its role will be similar to that of centers in other regions, i.e., communicating with research, educational, and other institutions and preparing individual strategies. However, it will differ from other centers in that it will not include a large research institution or science park. The center should be the head of science and innovation in the region. The city of Pilsen has such an institution, its BIC has served as a substitute for us to some extent, but I think we are now big enough and far enough along to have one at the regional level. At the same time, we also need the center for cross-border communication.
My vision is that the innovation center will not be funded solely from public money, but will cooperate as much as possible with the private sector and, to a certain extent, also obtain money from it. It is in the interest of companies from the Pilsen region that innovation and industry have support, and for that we also need their resources, their know-how, and further involvement. For example, they should create jobs, develop talent, get involved in incubation, acceleration… They will benefit from this by having talent from the Pilsen Region and not having to look elsewhere.
Do you have a specific model for the innovation center?
I have a meeting coming up with the director of JIC – the South Bohemian Innovation Center, which was established quite some time ago. I would like to learn from their experience, get inspiration, and avoid any problems they may have had to deal with. I also want to visit other centers in other regions later on and talk to colleagues from Bavaria and the Palatinate.
Let’s go back to the beginning of the interview. What do you want the region to look like when you hand it over to your successor?
I want us to have a functional innovation center here. I want us to have healthy companies that are stable in terms of personnel and finances. I want us to start climbing the rankings of innovative companies and innovative industries, because innovation has always been the engine of economic development.
