As the industry-led Hellenic Technology Cluster Initiative enters its Pilot Phase [see Greece frames future in technology cluster] targeting a competitive regional position in the global semiconductor, microelectronics and embedded systems markets, the government of Greece is taking a more activist role to promote innovation through improved public- private cooperation.

Beyond its broad support for industry efforts like the HTCI the Hellenic Ministry of Development also has major policy-making authority in the area of educational reform, the funding of research and development activity, and the regulation of research-oriented public-private partnerships.

To allow Greece to meet the challenges in today's increasingly competitive technology landscape, the ministry is promoting policies aimed at establishing a suitable climate for private investment and promoting greater cooperation in research and technology. The result: government cooperation with the private sector is one of the key engines driving technology development and business formation change in Greece.

The Ministry is giving special emphasis to cutting-edge technology beyond IT, semiconductors and microelectronics, including biotechnology, environmental technology, and renewable energy resources. This support is accompanied by sweeping changes in the law and pending structural changes in business practices, public-private technology development and capital formation throughout Greece's public and private sectors.

These moves are also in concert with a major MOD-led national policy initiative to overhaul and reform Greece's R&D system [See Greece's Ministry of Development seeks to unlock potential of nation's 'human capital'].

Initiatives to spur competitiveness in Greece's research and development sectors through industry initiated, bottom-up approaches like the HTCI are a new phenomenon to Greece. Unlike Silicon Valley and other regions in the United States and parts of Europe that have evolved a working policy of public-private cooperation, Greece has been slow to adapt its legal and commercial framework to modern business and technology realities.

But that too is changing.

Following in the footsteps of many EU nations and commercially progressive states around the world today, Greek laws are being adopted to promote--rather than prohibit-- the public exploitation of R&D and innovation. These moves have the potential to unlock the many technical treasures developed in Greece's far-flung, state-owned university research and development centers -- from Athens to Thessaloniki to Patras.

In legal terms, public-private partnerships are agreements or joint ventures between a public body and a private company, typically involving the joint ownership of a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) established under company law, to work in collaboration on a variety of projects, according to the International Financial Law Review (IFLR) .

A recent Greek law (Law 3389/2005) introduces the first regulation on public-private partnerships in Greece and opens the market to this new type of public procurement. Many observers think it will help to bypass and overcome some of the most archaic commercial codes in Greece that help account for the country's having one of the lowest foreign direct investment rates within the European Union.

Greece is also taking additional measures to streamline the business processes that underlie capital formation and the licensing and establishment of innovation-driven startup companies.

The Greek Home Office and the Ministry of Development recently concluded a public consultation on a draft law for the simplification of procedures related to the establishment of new businesses. The draft law reduces the number of different administrative services business people need to contact and deal with to start a new enterprise, and streamlines tax and administrative charges, reducing to five days the time needed to establish a new company.

The ministries say their initiative will reduce bureaucracy by 85 percent with up to 4,000 new corporations and 20,000 other firms per year expected to benefit from the proposed changes. Ministers are also currently working on the simplification of the licensing process for the operations of businesses. Greece's General Secretariat for Research and Technology (GSRT) has also established what it calls "regional innovation poles" that will lead to the development of new ones in Crete (Herakleion), Western Greece (Patras), Thessaly (Volos-Larissa) and Western Macedonia (Kozani).

The GSRT considers the innovation poles, together with research centers that are currently established in Thessaly, Patras, Giannina and Xanthi, the Innovation Zone of Thessaloniki, the network of incubators and the spin-off firms and clusters, as components of a homogeneous nationwide system of innovation promotion.

A new legal framework for this innovation system is being prepared and will be presented in the near future.