Specific Support to Cyprus: Summary Article

A PSF expert panel has examined how Cyprus’s publicly funded universities and research institutes can increase their engagement with the country’s business community. The panel found that their engagement is, indeed, currently low. The main reason is not an unwillingness to engage but a shortage of firms with sufficient “absorptive capacity” as to be able to benefit from the research, laboratory and consulting services that the universities and research institutes could offer: where there is very little effective demand, developing sustainable supply is practically impossible. It follows that measures to boost engagement with the enterprise sector need to go hand in hand with policy action to raise business demand for knowledge-based services.