European cities in the face of sustainable development

Motivation: The paper rises the issue of sustainable development in the context of challenges that present cities face. Development of innovative and sustainable economy is an aim for the whole society in the European Union. Three pillars of sustainable development: economic growth, environmental management and social inclusion are fundamental and occur across all economic sectors. Predominantly, they influence cities e.g. fast urbanization process, infrastructure, energy development as well as transportation. Cities in Europe are precursors of the transformation towards a low carbon and resource efficient economy. City authorities are planning and acting towards a more sustainable future characterized by investing in innovative, integrated technologies and services such as buildings, mobility, lighting and broadband communications.Aim: The aim of the article is to present challenges facing European cities in the light of sustainable development. The paper explores trends in regional policy undertaken by the European Union relating to sustainable development. The first part outlines the global vision of present and future goals of sustainable development in the world. The next part focuses on the cities and challenges they face referring to sustainable and smart development.Results: The conducted research shows sustainable development as still valid, important and topical. The research indicates that the structures of the EU are not the exclusively supportive and responsible for sustainable development in Europe. The entities such as cities play a very important role in achieving sustainability. Numerous European cities are still establishing programs integrating the energy, transport and ICT sectors in order to deliver more efficient services to their inhabitants. Finally, more and more cities are going to become smart in the nearest future.</p

Development of innovation economy - activity of local government in Poland

Purpose: The paper aimed to check the activities of local governments contributing to the development of the innovation economy in Poland as well as to find the answer to the questions if local governments both support innovations, as well as implement innovations themselves. Moreover, the purpose of the paper was to find out if activities of local governments depend on their type (rural, urban, urban-rural) or not? Approach/Methodology/Design: In order to achieve that the method of desk research, quantitative and qualitative research were used. The first part of the research was based on a literature review and the second concerned the development of the survey questionnaire based on the literature review. The questionnaire survey was developed and the whole population (2479) of local governments in Poland, was investigated, in early - using the CAWI method. Findings: We have got the answers from 453 local governments. The conducted analysis showed what kind of innovation is undertaken by Polish local governments frequently, we also find out what kind of activities they undertake to increase the innovation economy. Practical Implications: LGUs should continue implementing the innovations resulting from ICT infrastructure and e-government at local level development. Both the world trends as well as last pandemic time confirmed the need of boosting innovations in this area. Secondly, the LG authorities should cooperate with business actors, coming from the other public sector, academia, and civil society. Originality/Value: The research has enabled to develop a conceptual understanding of the relationship between local government and innovative activities.peer-reviewe

Development of an innovative economy in Poland based on the transfer of knowledge from universities to the economy

What is extremely important in the modern economy is the ability to create and adapt new solutions, technologies, and to introduce new products and services. Innovation is currently a significant factor influencing the development of both businesses and regions or countries [Zalesko 2005, p. 683]. In the European Union and its Member States there is an increasing interest in innovations and their impact on the socio-economic development, as evidenced by the new Europe 2020 strategy of socioeconomic development of the European Union, in which innovations are a priority. It is increasingly emphasized that for the innovative economy to develop, the academic sector must cooperate with the economy in the process of both generating and implementing innovations. The article discusses the issue of cooperation between science and business in Poland for the development of innovation

Rozwój gospodarki innowacyjnej poprzez klastry

The development of an innovation economy is a priority of the most highly developed countries. Poland also belongs to a group of countries whose goal is to create and strengthen the innovation of the economy and numerous activities are undertaken to achieve this. Cooperation between science and business, and cooperation between enterprises and open innovations are elements that promote innovation in the economy. The purpose of the article is to present the importance of clusters in the development of an innovation economy in Poland. Using the method of desk research, literature review, reports and data analysis and the current cluster policy in Poland are presented. Additionally, supporting cluster development as part of the Intelligent Development Operational Program is discussed, and the internationalization of clusters in Poland is presented as an important element contributing to the development of an innovation economy.Rozwój innowacyjnej gospodarki to priorytet większości wysoko rozwiniętych państw. Polska także należy do grupy krajów, których celem jest tworzenie i wzmacnianie innowacyjności gospodarki. W związku z tym podejmowane są różnorakie działania mające na celu podnoszenie innowa cyjności gospodarki. Współpraca nauki i biznesu, współpraca przedsiębiorstw, otwarte innowacje to elementy, które sprzyjają innowacyjności. Celem artykułu jest przedstawienie znaczenia klastrów w rozwoju innowacyjnej gospodarki w Polsce. Wykorzystując metodę analizy literatury przedmiotu, raportów oraz danych, przedstawiono aktualną politykę klastrową w Polsce oraz omówiono wspieranie rozwoju klastrów w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Inteligentny Rozwój. Ponadto przedstawiono umiędzynarodawianie klastrów w Polsce jako istotnego elementu przyczyniającego się do rozwoju innowacyjnej gospodarki

Pobudzanie innowacji i przedsiębiorczości w polskiej gospodarce

The aim of the article is to examine and assess selected aspects contributing to innovativeness of economy and inciatives used by the Polish government to stimulate the development of innovation and entrepreneurship. in the economy. To achieve this goal, the authors analyzed the dynamics of changes in business environment institutions and the actions and programs conducted in Poland at national level. As a result of the research, it can be stated that the activities undertaken in Poland resulted in numerous BEIs institutions and Poland has developed friendly environment for business. The conducted research confirms the increase of employment in R&D in private sector and a constat increase in R&D finacing by private sector

Attributes of local government managers – what matters in local entrepreneurship context?

Purpose: The objective of this paper is to explore how education and professional experience of local government (LG) managers corresponds with entrepreneurship development and local development processes in local administration units (LAU). Approach/Methodology/Design: In research, that is representative for Poland, authors surveyed 477 LG managers (enabling to achieve 3,9% error rate with 95% level of confidence) and correlated the data on their education and experience with respected local entrepreneurship metrics to conclude on correspondence of investigated phenomena. Findings: While endogenous local development theories indicate LGs and their attributes as intervening variable in entrepreneurship stimulation and local development process, local entrepreneurship metrics need to be taken into account to indicate their relevance for entrepreneurship environment and entrepreneurial ecosystems at local level. Practical Implications: Education level of local government managers might be perceived as a mediating variable between quasi-independent local resource endowment and dependent entrepreneurial activity in local administrative units. Originality/Value: Presented results extend perspective on local entrepreneurship ecosystem by outlining the role of trainings and continued education of local government managers in business activity creation.peer-reviewe

Bottom-Up Initiatives Undertaken by Local Governments to Support Entrepreneurship

The present paper deals with issues related to activities undertaken by local government. The article focuses on the identification and assessment of the significance of local government’s different bottom-up initiatives that support development of local entrepreneurship. The article also indirectly discusses the importance of activities referring to energy efficiency. Through the digitization process and by using digital tools, LGs realize projects, improve local actors’ awareness, and finally achieve new challenges such as a higher proportion of gross final energy consumption being from renewable sources. The aim of the paper is to present the relationship between the LGs’ entrepreneurial activities, which we call bottom-up initiatives, and the local entrepreneurship level, understood as the number of entrepreneurs active on the territory of a LG. This paper presents the results of research carried out on the bottom-up initiatives undertaken by Polish local governments to support entrepreneurship. The research was based on survey and statistical tools and stepwise regression analysis. In the paper, bottom-up initiatives undertaken by local governments (such as organizing events at the national or regional scale that enable networking among entrepreneurs or establishing departments for supporting local entrepreneurship that offer cooperation with local entrepreneurs) were found to influence the number of entrepreneurs active in local government territories. The paper concludes that local governments and their bottom-up activities are an important factor influencing local entrepreneurship development. The presented research results have implications for policy makers and may be useful for local governments in Poland and in other countries in the context of supporting entrepreneurship by undertaking bottom-up initiatives at the local level

Investment Offer as an Expression of Marketing Orientation of Polish Local Governments in the Context of their Investment Attractiveness

The marketing concept of the functioning of territorial units is well-known today, both in the literature of the subject and in practice, although the activities undertaken vary in their intensity and scope. The expressions of marketing thinking and actions are, among other things, activities undertaken by local governments in the area of shaping the offer of a territorial unit. In our research, we focused on the territorial investment offer of the Polish local regions (NUTS 5), as well as actions taken by local governments as the entities with the most real opportunities for shaping this offer. The main goal of our research was the exploration of market orientation (MO) and investment offer (IO) in the practice of local governments, and then an attempt to link the undertaken actions with their potential investment attractiveness (PAI). The conclusions contained in this article are based on research conducted on a random sample of 277 Polish local regions with the use of three research methods: electronic audit of the official web portals of local regions, the mystery stakeholder, and an electronic survey sent to the official administrative representatives of the local regions in the sample.The conducted research shows that Polish local governments are slowly adopting MO, increasingly identifying their customers (including investors) and knowingly providing the expected benefits. As part of the conducted research a wide collection of good practices was developed in the area of shaping the investment offer and marketing approach which should be promoted and discussed