National R + D agency, intellectual property authority jointly supporting innovation in Hungary

The National Research, Development, and Innovation Office has signed a cooperation agreement with the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office to jointly promote innovative companies on the market, an official of the innovation and technology ministry told a press conference on Tuesday.

State Secretary Tamás Schanda said that innovation companies had outperformed in the “hard times” of 2020, adding that increasing research, development, and innovation spending in the past decade had proved a good decision.

The government has allocated 43 billion forints (EUR 120.5m) more to the goal than in the previous year, Schanda noted.

“Promoting talent, new ideas, and Hungarian creativity, however, requires cooperation between state agencies,” Schanda said. Cooperation between the two authorities will “complete that supportive background”, he added.

Higher education is a primary venue of R+D+I, so the government is promoting cooperation between students, teachers and market players, Schanda said.

In the coming years, the government will plough 1,500 billion forints into the development of higher education and R+D+I, he said.

Those monies will support the founding of a cooperative doctorate scheme, National Laboratories and Scientific and Innovation Parks, and a wage support scheme in the R+D+I sector, he said.

The past ten years have shown that Hungarians want to make a living through honest work, Schanda said. Rather than raising taxes and taking austerity measures, as leftist governments had done during times of crises, the Fidesz-Christian Democrat government has chosen an alternative path and saved over a million jobs in the process, he said.

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