Dear Prime Minister, it is a great pleasure and honor to have you here with us today. As you know, this is a fireside chat, so it's supposed to be interactive, open discussion, and I hope we'll be able to address some very challenging questions. We would like to explore not just policy but also vision, specifically your vision of where Greece stands today in science and innovation and where it will be going in the next 10 years. So before we start, would you like to have an opening statement?
No, I think you want this to be an interactive discussion. So, I'll spare you introductory speeches and I'll go directly to your questions.
Fantastic. So, let's dive in. The first theme is the future of research in Greece. Prime Minister, we have been following with great interest the very impressive efforts your government and you personally have on AI. We were very happy to participate just a few days ago in an amazing event at Rodio where you hosted Mr. Hassabis. AI has become a major drive and priority for the country. However, there are other areas where Greeks dominate internationally, one of which is biotechnology. Greek scientists abroad are in some of the largest positions in industry and academia. However, this is happening abroad. When we look in our own country, there is this big disconnect. Where do you see the whole field of research going, where it is today in Greece, and where do you believe it should be going in the next few years?
Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me and for mentioning the very interesting discussion I had with Demis Hassabis on Friday at Rodio. It was surprising to see 5,000 people show up for an event that was competing for attention with the basketball game that unfortunately we lost. But I think this is an indication that something really is changing in Greece in terms of our attitude towards innovation and entrepreneurship. My fundamental belief is that Greece can become what I term an innovation nation by focusing on our ability to leapfrog other countries and making up the lost distance with many of our European counterparts. If you look at the robustness of the ecosystem of entrepreneurial companies in Greece, we should be pleasantly surprised in terms of the number of companies, the availability of private funds, and the exits that some of these companies have succeeded in putting together. Something clearly is happening in terms of the private ecosystem around innovation, research, and development. Now, when we look at the public space, the traditional way we fund our research, it's fair to say that a lot remains to be done. We still have a relatively fragmented system where we have research centers supervised by the Ministry of Development and the Secretary General for Research, but at the same time, we also have a lot of research taking place in our academic institutions. It is very clear to me that these two spaces are not communicating in the way that they should. So one of the ideas I am very much focused on is how can we create a unified research space. And maybe one solution, which I'm putting forward for the first time in the public dialogue, is to create a dedicated ministry for research and development which will also incorporate higher education. As someone who has done government restructuring at the highest level, I know that these efforts need a lot of preparation. This is not something we could do tomorrow. But it is certainly something that the country could have ready after the next elections if we plan it correctly and engage with the research community to unify our research space. I'm ready to have this discussion in earnest and in cooperation with the Ministry of Education. We will organize a more structured dialogue in terms of how this common research space could be set up. This would also take into consideration the absolute size of the country and the fact that Greece is not in a position not to at least focus on certain sectors where we feel we have natural comparative advantages. Now, is biotech one of those sectors? The answer is yes. Why? I think for two obvious reasons. The first is that we do have a very dynamic domestic pharmaceuticals industry. We have 45 factories in Greece as a result of the incentives we provided the domestic pharma industry. We had investments close to 2 billion euros as a result of the investment clawback. And a lot of this investment is not just in basic production. It is also in research and development. Of course, the second factor, I'm sure we'll discuss it, is our amazing expat community which can act as a natural bridge between Greece and the cutting edge of life sciences abroad.
Fantastic. To the audience, don't forget that you heard this for the first time at Bio3. Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. This almost addresses already the next two questions I have for this theme, but nevertheless I'm going to go through those very quickly. As you already know, there is a strong outcry from the Greek scientific research community for the way that proposals are evaluated in programs such as Trust Your Stars. Following that, many scientists have suggested the creation of an independent authority to ensure a more transparent and efficient review process, something that several other European countries have already established. Do you envision that within the new structure within the government there will be space as well for an independent body?
Absolutely. I mean, I was not happy, I'll be very honest here, with the way this program was run. And we're looking at options because I think some of the complaints that were raised were legitimate as I looked into the details. But then of course there's a paradox here because this program was run by the Ministry of Education yet most of our experience in terms of assessing research proposals is not with the Ministry of Education. So we asked them to do something that they don't necessarily have a lot of experience in doing. So for me it is imperative that we need an independent body. We can call it whatever we want, a national science board, but that will also leverage expertise from abroad. I don't necessarily want this to be just an internal process maybe recycling the same proposals, but I do want an objective assessment from abroad with certain specific guidelines. I don't want to have any doubts regarding the meritocracy that we need in terms of assessing proposals. And the last thing we need is to enter this endless loop where people question the results and then we reassess their claims. And I think one of the reasons why this is happening is because fundamentally we don't have enough trust in each other. So if I think we can build a trustworthy body that is truly independent, then there will be less questioning of the results. And of course we also need to determine as a state the amount of funding necessary because right now we have Horizon, these are European programs and we can be quite competitive, we have programs that are funded through EU structural funds, but we don't have a permanent envelope where we say that every year there will be a call for X million euros run in the same way so that we offer some predictability and continuity when it comes to a research budget. It doesn't need to be a huge amount, but I do focus on consistency and on knowing that this is going to be a permanent budget item so that we also offer our research community more visibility. And of course for me what is critical are the necessary bridges with industry and how we support research and development at the level of private companies. There, as you know, we have very advantageous tax incentives. We've seen a significant increase in R&D spending by the private sector and I do believe that we also see more connection between the private sector and our universities and our research centers because in the past this country has been held back by very radical leftist preoccupations regarding the connection between industry and applied research that is taking place at universities. I do think that we have progressed in terms of universities understanding that they can produce knowledge which can be applied in the real world, that we can actually have a proper spin-off structure by which they can commercialize the knowledge that emerges from universities. We're clearly not where we want to be but at least I think that attitudes are changing and they're moving in the right direction.
Yeah, excellent. Continuity in funding is one of the long-standing requests from the scientific community. And coming to the last part of the first theme, I need to say that there is a prevailing sentiment among Greek scientists that research has never been truly a national priority, not from this government, not from any governments in the last 30-40 years. Of course, no state has unlimited monetary resources and particularly Greece still faces a heavy financial debt. However, national security has rightfully so been at the top priority and your government has made remarkable efforts to safeguard the country. So my question is, what about research? Why do you think it has not been viewed with the same urgency as national security, given that research is the foundation of innovation and ultimately of Greece's financial and economic recovery?
Well, first of all, I happen to believe that research and national security are to a certain extent connected. If you look for example at the great success of the Israeli tech industry, a lot of the research was done for military purposes and then it acquired a dual-use nature. The same is true also for a lot of the basic research that was done in the United States that has resulted in technologies that we currently widely use. Of course, we need to be aware of our size and our capabilities. But I do see a new emerging space developing in terms of technological innovation around defense. For the first time we have a structure, ELKAK, which has the ability to relatively quickly finance innovative projects in terms of product development which of course entail a lot of basic research in order to get to a proof of concept product or service. And I think this inevitably will generate a lot of interest not just by private companies but also by all the researchers that are active in this space. So I do see a new niche not necessarily directly correlated to the topic of your conference which could benefit from direct funding at the product level but which also entails some basic research. Now to your broader question, I do think that it brings me back to what we discussed previously: a very fragmented landscape, lack of proper evaluation of the quality of the research that has been produced, a tendency to just not challenge the status quo because at some point in a competitive landscape we also need to acknowledge that maybe not everyone is going to survive if they don't do work which is acknowledged as important and work that deserves funding. On the other hand, I think there's a great opportunity if you look at also what's happening in the United States to maybe repatriate some of the researchers who may find themselves now in a more challenging funding environment. Again, we need to be aware of the size of the country and the fiscal constraints imposed upon us. But I do think it is perfectly legitimate in our annual budget to allocate a specific amount. I'm not ready to say what it would be, but to ensure continuity in research from government budgets, not just from European funds.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister. I think we have such good news in the area of research and basic research that I would like to shift to another area, maybe hoping for equal good news. I will move from research to innovation. Support for innovation, entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship has been one of the flagships of your government and I think there will be no doubt within this room that the whole country has been transformed in the last five to six years in this direction. However, in Greece there is a lot of discussion and the typical discussion is always what can the government do for us? At BioInnovation Greece, our philosophy is a little bit different, maybe because most of us are coming from the Greek diaspora and the philosophy we have there is not what the government can do for us but what can we do for our country. So with this in mind, how do you see the most effective ways for researchers and organizations like ours, like BioInnovation Greece, to transform scientific research and innovation into societal value? And specifically, how can initiatives like BioInnovation Greece, which aims to bridge research and innovation and entrepreneurship and the Greek diaspora, align with national priorities to maximize their impact? In other words, how can we help our country?
