Latvia's science "valley of death": why good ideas fail to reach the market
Agnese Oļševska, director of the Innovation Centre at Riga Stradiņš University, says many Latvian scientific inventions stall between the laboratory and the market. Some ideas never reach consumers, while others seek their path outside Latvia.
Latvia produces scientific discoveries and inventions that could grow into internationally competitive products, yet many of them stall on the way from the laboratory to the market. This is explained by Agnese Oļševska, director of the Innovation Centre at Riga Stradiņš University, in an interview with the business section of the news portal Delfi.
The phase between a scientific finding and a successful product is often called the "valley of death", a stage that is particularly dangerous for new ideas. Oļševska explains why precisely this stage is the hardest to overcome for knowledge-intensive ideas in Latvia.
What happens to the ideas
Many such ideas never reach consumers. Others look for their further path outside Latvia. As a result, the country loses potential future success stories, meaning products that could have competed internationally.
What the interview covers
Oļševska also discusses why the obstacle for Latvian scientists on the road to market is not always a lack of money, and she outlines Latvia's strengths in this field.
The full interview is available to Delfi subscribers, and the publicly visible part does not set out her specific arguments or examples. The available information shows that the topic concerns how knowledge created in Latvia can be turned into products that actually reach the market rather than being developed elsewhere.
