Some selected experiences with FP5 participation a view from Poland

It is of fundamental interest to everyone engaged in the process of European Enlargement to address the following question: howimportantinEU catching upactivitiesbythecandidatecountriesistheR&Dsector,andhow instrumental in enhancing this sector have been so far the opportunities offered by the 5 th Framework Programme? While any measurable answer to the first part of the above question is anyhow enormously difficult, addressing the second past of it in sufficiently precise terms appears equally complex and also greatly premature in view of our only one-year experiences. Nevertheless, sharing some of the experiences gathered so far, no matter how incomplete, may shed some interesting light on the present and future of our 5FP engagement. Let us start by identifying two major world economy trends: advance of information technologies internalization and globalization of society and economy Regarding Eastern CEECs) vast statistical data do not leaveanyfor inspiteofsometendencies(likeanestimatednumberofpersonal computers per 100 population or telephone line growth rates) a gap in information infrastructure between CEECs and EU is large and the situation is definitely far from satisfactory. Barriers to growth, related to historical legacy, appear to be related to: a hierarchical organizational culture, a large number of non-restructured enterprises, a deficient business environment. Fortunately a number of optimistic observations can be made regarding the globalization of the leading CEEC economies. We witness in particular: changing trade patterns (by passing from a semi-closed economy to the trade opening), moving from the default on foreign dept to the positions of a major capital importer, starting the circle of the investment, productivity growth, increase in wages and income, which means transition from a declining area of massive emigration to a growing economy. The fundamental problem of whether we have managed in the last decade to reduce the technological gap remains open with many key issues still to be addressed: