The formula for future economic growth is based on science, says Mart Ustav, CEO of biotech company of the year, Icosagen.
“If the government wants our economy to grow and generate sufficient financial resources, and people’s wealth to increase, the process of economic growth should be kick-started by investing in research, especially in applied sciences.

We asked 2% of the club two questions – what advice would you give to the Minister of Economy to turn the economy around and what is the biggest untapped opportunity in the Estonian economy.
Here are the answers from Mart Ustav, Company of the Year, Innovator of the Year and CEO of Icosagen.

What is the biggest untapped opportunity in the Estonian economy?

There is a clear untapped potential in science in Estonia to make discoveries of applied value that could form the basis for new technologies, products, businesses and the wider economy.

The Minister of Economic Affairs asks you for your advice: what would you do to turn the Estonian economy, which has been in decline for two years, back to growth?

Estonia’s business and economy must be geared towards the development, production and sale of exportable products with high added value to other countries.
During the years of independence, Estonian science has developed into an activity with a high level of knowledge and a relatively good infrastructure, as shown by the number of scientific articles and the places where they have been published, as well as the number of citations of articles produced in Estonia.
Thousands of people are employed in research institutions in Estonia, so there is a pool of competent people.
At the same time, not enough Estonian researchers are making discoveries with application value.
Estonian science produces 6-7 times fewer patents per year than Finnish science, nine times fewer than Swedish science and 10 times fewer than Danish science per million inhabitants.
If the government wants our economy to grow and generate sufficient financial resources, and if it wants to increase people’s wealth, it should kick-start the process of economic growth by investing in research, and in applied sciences in particular.
Academic science has a large number of competent people, and as a rule has scientific equipment and laboratories.
Investment should be made in applied research through grants in the natural sciences, engineering, medicine, technology and agriculture, with a requirement to make discoveries and to patent the applied aspects of these discoveries in the USA, the UK and EU countries.
Mechanisms for evaluating and awarding such grants exist within the Estonian Research Council ETAG.
Mechanisms have already been set up within the Ministry of Economy (RUP and RUK) to ensure that such discoveries with patented application value are transformed by companies into exportable products.