esi: Who are you, what do you do and what makes you an expert on your start-upcountry?
Luís: The Pedro Nunes Institute (IPN) was created in 1991 on the initiative of the University of Coimbra. IPN’s mission is to change business environment and organizations in general, promoting a culture of innovation, quality, accuracy and entrepreneurship, based upon a solid relationship between universities and companies and acting on three fields: research, incubation/acceleration and training.
esi: What is cool about your start-upcountry, what inspires you and keeps you thriving?
Luís: Portugal is an economy strongly based on small and medium enterprises. Therefore, start-ups play a major role in the science and technology market, turning the innovation produced by academia into differential value for customers. In Lisbon and in several other business areas, you can own a start-up and at the same time feel that it actually is not a handicap, but rather the contrary.
esi: What makes you shake your head about your start-upcountry, what needs to be improved?
Luís: The general economic and financial situation of the country surely needs a boost. The European sovereign debt crisis has packed a hard punch on Portugal: Domestic consumption is currently crushed and bank loans are either hard to get or hard to repay, because of their high interest rates. Private equity is still short of needs, even though Venture Capial funds have strongly increased their activity these last few years.
esi: What’s some cool fact we are likely not to know about your start-upcountry?
Luís: Portugal is the 25th Most Innovative Country in the World, according to the Global Innovation Index of Bloomberg, ahead of countries such as Spain, China or South Africa, for example.Also, Portugal is the 10th country of the European Union (in 28) with many of its universities considered among the top 100 in the world, according to the „Times Higher Education 100 Under 50“ ranking for 2013.
esi: Thank you for the interview.
About the interviewpartner: Bild:andrade.jpg
Luís Andrade dos Santos is Project Manager at IPN Incubadora
