Current challenges/ problems facing the organization and educational effort

In pursuance of the policy of the rapid development of integrated economy it is vital to create a favourable climate for entrepreneurship training in the society, aiming at a change of mindset as well as at improvement of skills and elimination of obstacles of establishment and development of new companies. Considering this, next to the discussed and pending problems of regulation, taxes and finances, it is advised to create and apply horizontal means for the establishment of promotion basis of the entrepreneurship policy.

In order to more efficiently organise processes of entrepreneurship motivation and training as well as its development in the activities of science parks it is important to consider and evaluate properly such processes like organisation of innovative business, purposeful investment and constant training.

Innovations and entrepreneurship are not always interconnected. Due to insufficiently close cooperation among scientific research institutions, universities and businessmen in the fields of researches and creation of new products and technologies for the market, businessmen do not always find innovations attractive. Usually the fields of scientific researches pass business demands and a lack of results suitable for commercialisation is felt. Therefore, one of the most important tasks in this field is to train entrepreneurship not merely among companies that apply innovation practically, but also among scientists and researchers. This would significantly increase the relevance of scientific researches towards business, would encourage researchers and scientist to be more active while implementing tasks of technological development, and choosing research subjects, international experience and databases would be employed.

Entrepreneurship training and investments in innovations are essential not only for high-tech companies, but also in branches of traditional industry and service sector. An innovatory attitude towards business management and a constant application of innovations contribute to improve labour productivity, efficiency, quality, and at the same time – international competitive ability of a company. Considering the low level of innovative activity of the country’s business companies, it is essential to intensively stimulate creative innovative activity, i.e. intensify cooperation between business and scientific research institutions, induce the development of researches done by companies and support the establishment of technical facilities necessary for this kind of activity.

It should be mentioned that there are cases when heads of Lithuanian companies do not know that they have some problems, which impede the development of a successful business, therefore it is important to help find them. Entrepreneurship trainings, organised by institutions of the network of public services to business, are often very helpful in solving problems of the lack of knowledge or skills. Thus, accessibility of public services to business, its content and quality, conformity with demands of business companies and business starters, is an important factor to raise the level of entrepreneurship. A lot of national and regional means are often initiated on the basis of priorities stated in EU or national programmes. When implementation period of these programmes is over and new ones appear, the further pursuance of these initiatives is usually intermitted. Therefore, consultation services and training cycles are often unfinished. As a result, when forming entrepreneurship training programmes, it is essential to project their continuation after financial resources end up.

Application of innovations to business is basically done as adaptation of necessary technologies, but not as creation of original knowledge or application of somewhere else created innovations. Only the

passive activity of venture capital funds in the field of sponsorship of projects created by young innovative companies. Innovations are always related with big risk, therefore, due to the over-risky projects, banks often refuse to finance them. In foreign countries informal individual investors – ‘business angels’ – come to help. They are ready to invest their capital in risky businesses just appealing to their experience and interests. In Lithuania the real ‘business angels’ still do not exist, because there are not many people who freely hold the sums bigger than 100,000 euros, thus, only unification of ‘business angels’ can be discussed. Notably, the demands of modern business are bigger than business patrons can offer.

Businessmen need to be prepared for management of investments, since the expenditures, necessary for doing innovative activity, are planned easily, but the income – is not. Many businessmen lack financial resources to order investment projects at experienced companies, thus, trainings that focus on practical preparation are relevant and necessary. Such training sessions allow businessmen to prepare investment projects on their own with the help of consultants.

It is not a rare case when university graduates become initiators of an innovative business. The data of various researches indicate that graduates of American universities already know how to start their own business; however, the ones from the EU (including Lithuania) lack the knowledge. While studying they do not get practical knowledge, because business and technology studies are often unrelated to practice. Therefore, universities should aim at making entrepreneurship an important part of their syllabi, for combining entrepreneurship-based attitude and abilities acquired in science and technical studies, students and researchers will have an opportunity to better commercialise their own ideas as well as developed new technologies (21).

Systematic entrepreneurship training in university and college studies is also integrated into programmes of technical disciplines. This establishes better conditions for ‘spin-offs’ and innovatory companies to appear and helps scientific researchers gain entrepreneurship skills.

‘Spin-offs’ – companies that were established on the basis of researches done by higher education schools – are more often emphasised as a means of strengthening the development of local economy. However, their rates of establishment and development are very dependent on scientists’ entrepreneurship abilities. Due to some inner barriers, like a system of career, which is built on academic achievements, the entrepreneurship of the latter at universities is not appreciated positively. It is very important to have the necessary number of lecturers to teach entrepreneurship training disciplines, to secure their qualification and intensify their international exchanges. Currently, innovatory training methods of entrepreneurship are applied and constantly developed in the EU, also their practical effect is analysed, therefore, active international interchange of this practice is available. Having evaluated Lithuanian scientific potential, it can be stated that only a minor part of modern technologies, which are necessary for Lithuanian companies, can be created in Lithuania. This means that Lithuanian companies will have to purchase the vast majority of modern and competitive technologies in other countries. The rise of such tendencies has already been noticed. To purchase foreign technologies and apply them in our companies is a more complex task than to do the same with local technologies. Often such a task is too complicated for Lithuanian small and medium sized companies, which lack experience in international cooperation, transfer of intellectual property and application of technologies. Here, the role of science parks and centres of innovations is very significant, as are their international contacts and assistance for firms when applying for BP-7, COST, Eureka, and other EU programmes.