Under contract to the US Agency for International Development members of the ETG project team undertook an unusual assignment to prepare the economic rationale and business plan for a science park for Bratislava, Slovakia. This effort paralleled that of an EC group, but reached a different conclusion. The project team applied principles of economic development to the planning of a technology park that stress the importance of developing industrial clusters as a means for enabling economic growth in regions, and, the emphasize that soft and hard economic infrastructure of accessible technology, available skills, adequate financing, and appropriate physical infrastructure is essential to cluster development. In applying these principles, the project team achieved the following: (1) Evaluated the economy to identify the “seeds” of potential clusters. In doing this, the team identified an emerging information technology cluster comprising over 200 small software companies, and mixture of restructuring hardware and systems firms.

(2) Assessed European and international information technology markets that Slovak and Bratislava firms could reasonably compete in, directly or through partnerships–which could drive the region’s future economy forward.

(3) Assessed the responsiveness of the regions economic infrastructure to the information technology industries. This identified specific business service needs for the emerging information services cluster.

(4) Prepared a business plan that would lead to the creation of a “virtual” innovation park rather than a physical science park. This concept enables establishing a service management business that will broker and provide services needed by the information technology industries, manage a network of existing real estate across the city to “incubate” companies to a point at which they require new and larger facilities.

At the point at which the domestic demand and capabilities have grown, the new business organization (Bratislava Innovation Park) would actually become a development partner and core service provider in an actual technology park. The project concluded with provision of a business plan, implementation plan and identification of private investors for the new organization.