Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis participated in a conversation with the co-founder of BioInnovation Greece, Nikos Kyrpides, in the context of the Bio3 Forum 2025 at Technopolis City of Athens in Gazi.
During the conversation, the Prime Minister noted that he is ready to discuss with the research community the establishment of a Ministry that will deal specifically with research and development, within two years, adding that the goal is to unify the research field.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis pointed out that Greece must secure a permanent budget allocation for research, based on meritocracy and strict performance evaluation criteria, so that our researchers have clarity regarding the rules and the resources available to them.
The Prime Minister’s remarks follow:
In his introductory remarks, the Prime Minister noted:
First of all, thank you for inviting me, and thank you for mentioning the very interesting discussion I had with Demis Hassabis on Friday at Irodio. It was surprising to see 5,000 people show up for an event that was competing for attention with the basketball game. Unfortunately, we lost. But I think this is an indication that something really is changing in Greece in terms of our attitude towards innovation and entrepreneurship.
My fundamental belief is that Greece can become what I term an ‘innovation nation’, by focusing on our ability to leapfrog other countries and making up the lost distance with many of our European counterparts. I do think that if you look at the robustness of the ecosystem of entrepreneurial companies in Greece, we should be pleasantly surprised in terms of the number of companies, the availability of the private funds, the exits that some of these companies have succeeded in putting together. So something clearly is happening in terms of the private ecosystem around innovation, research, and development. Now, when we look at the public space, the traditional way I think we fund our research, I think it’s fair to say that a lot remains to be done.
I think right now, if you look at, and I speak after six years of experience in dealing with this issue, I do think that we still have a relatively fragmented system where we have research centres which are supervised by the Ministry of Development and by the Secretary General for Research. But, at the same time, we also have a lot of research taking place in our academic institutions. It is very clear to me that these two spaces are not communicating in the way that they should.
So one of the ideas that I am very much focused on, something that we have discussed also in the public debate on research and innovation, public and private, is how can we create a unified research space. Maybe one solution, which I’m putting forward for the first time in the public dialogue, but I’m happy to engage with the research community, is to create a dedicated Ministry for Research and Development, which will, however, also incorporate higher education.
Again, as someone who has done government restructuring at the highest level, I know that these efforts, in order for them to actually be implemented, need a lot of preparation.
So this is not something that we can do tomorrow, but it’s certainly something that the country could have ready after the next elections, if we plan it correctly and if we engage with the research community in a way to unify our research space, and then also look at the other institutions that we need to have that will supplement the government agency that will be in charge of a unified research space. So I’m ready to have this discussion in earnest. And in cooperation, both with the Minister of Education and the Deputy Minister, we will organise a more structured dialogue in terms of how this common research space could be set up.
As far as the public space around research, which would also take into consideration the absolute size of the country and the fact that Greece is not in a position not to at least focus on certain sectors where we feel we have natural comparative advantages. Now, is biotech one of the sectors? The answer is yes. Why? I think there are two obvious reasons.
The first is that we do have a very dynamic domestic pharmaceuticals industry. We should not forget that right now we have 45 factories in Greece as a result of the incentives that we provided the domestic pharma industry. We had investments close to €2 billion as a result of the investment clawback. And a lot of this investment is not just in basic production, it’s also in research and development.
Of course, the second factor, I’m sure we’ll discuss it, is our amazing expat community, which can act as a natural bridge between Greece and the cutting edge of life sciences abroad.
When asked about programs aimed at the Greek scientific community, such as Trust Your Stars, and the response they have received, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said:
Absolutely. I was not happy, I’ll be very honest, with the way this programme was run. We’re looking at options because I think some of the complaints that were raised were legitimate as I looked into the details. But then, of course, there’s a paradox here, because this programme was run by the Ministry of Education. Yet, most of our experience in terms of assessing research proposals is not with the Ministry of Education. We asked them to do something that they don’t necessarily have a lot of experience in doing.
For me, it is imperative that we need an independent body. We can call it whatever we want, a national science board, but that will also leverage expertise from abroad. I don’t necessarily want this to be just an internal process, maybe recycling the same proposals. But I do want an objective assessment from abroad, with certain specific guidelines. But I don’t want to have any doubts regarding the meritocracy that we need in terms of assessing proposals. The last thing we need is to enter this endless loop where people question the results, and then we reassess their claims. I think one of the reasons why this is happening is because, fundamentally, we don’t have enough trust in each other.
I think if we can build a trustworthy body that is truly independent, then there will be less questioning of the results. Of course, we also need to determine, as a state, the amount of funding necessary. Because right now we have ‘Horizon’, we have European programmes, and we can be quite competitive, we have programmes that are funded through EU structural funds. But we don’t have a permanent envelope, where we say that every year there will be a call for x million euros, run by in the same way, so that we offer some predictability and continuity when it comes to our research budget.
It doesn’t need to be a huge amount. But I do focus on consistency and on knowing that this is going to be a permanent budget item, so that we also offer our research community more visibility.
And, of course, to me, what is critical is the necessary bridges with industry and how we support research and development at the level of private companies. There, as you know, we have very advantageous tax incentives. We’ve seen a significant increase in R&D spending by the private sector. And I do believe that we also see more connection between the private sector and our universities and our research centres.
Because in the past, this country has been held back by very radical leftist preoccupations regarding the connection between industry and applied research that is taking place at universities. I do think that we have progressed in terms of universities understanding that they can produce knowledge which can be applied in the real world, that we can actually have a proper spin-off structure by which they can commercialise the knowledge that emerges from universities. We’re clearly not where we want to be, but at least I think that attitudes are changing and moving in the direction.
Regarding the role of scientific research in matters of national security, the Prime Minister stressed:
Well, first of all, I believe that research and national security are, to a certain extent, connected. If you look, for example, at the great success of the Israeli tech industry, a lot of the research was done for military purposes, and then it acquired dual use nature. The same is true also for a lot of the basic research that was done in the United States that has resulted in technologies that we currently widely use.
Of course, we need to be aware of our size and our capabilities. But I do see a new emerging space developing in terms of technology, technological innovation around defence. For the first time, we have a structure, ELCAC, which has the ability to relatively quickly finance innovative projects in terms of product development, which, of course, entail a lot of basic research in order to get to a proof of concept product or service.
I think this inevitably will generate a lot of interest, not just by private companies, but also by all the researchers that are active in this space. I do see a new niche, not necessarily directly correlated to the topic of your conference, which could benefit from direct funding at the product level, but which also entails some basic research.
Now, to your broader question, I do think that it brings me back to what we discussed previously, a very fragmented landscape, lack of proper evaluation of the quality of the research that has been produced, a tendency to just not to challenge the status quo because at some point in a competitive landscape, we also need to acknowledge that maybe not everyone is going to survive if they don’t do work, which is acknowledged as important and work that deserves to be done.
On the other hand, I think there’s a great opportunity, if you look at also what’s happening in the United States, maybe to repatriate some of the researchers who may find themselves now in a more challenging funding environment. Again, we need to be aware of the size of the country and the fiscal constraints imposed upon us. But I do think it is perfectly legitimate in our annual budget to allocate a specific amount -I’m not ready to say what it would be- to ensure continuity in research from government budgets, not just from European funds.
With regard to innovation and entrepreneurship, the government’s actions to support this sector and attract Greeks abroad, Kyriakos Mitsotakis pointed out:
Well, first of all, I think it’s quite important to recognise that the Greek diaspora can add tremendous value to the country. If you look at the number of professors in the top 100 American universities, we are extremely overrepresented, which means that there is the intellectual calibre that, under certain circumstances, can be very useful to the country, especially in the sectors such as artificial intelligence, but also life sciences. We have really leading figures, both in academia, but also in industry.
For example, when Pfizer decided to set up its big data analytics centre in Thessaloniki, initially maybe they took what they thought was a ‘leap of faith’, but they were so pleasantly surprised by the human talent that was available that they scaled up the operation faster than they had anticipated, which is also a message for other large companies to come and set up a premise in Greece, primarily it could be an R&D centre that can attract talent, both from our work and domestically.
And again, I participated this Saturday in a workshop organised by Endeavor Greece, bringing together entrepreneurs, founders, but also important funds. And it was clear to me that there is a lot of dynamism in this space.
I don’t think that the government should necessarily interfere in terms of crowding out investments that would take place from the private sector. We will have our own growth fund, which we are launching, which will invest in longer term areas of strategic interest to the country. But at the end of the day, the funding and the entrepreneurial ecosystem needs to function according to the rules of the private economy. There are things we can do to help.
For example, we have set up, one of the first things we did, a very, I would say, attractive stock option regime. If you look at our capital gains taxation, it is extremely generous for owners of equity. There are other tools we can help in terms of ensuring that startup companies can have access to capital. We have the simple agreements for future equity, what we call SAFE, which are very much used in Silicon Valley, which are standardised ways for young companies to raise capital. Maybe this is something that we can add to an institutional framework.
Then, of course, a big part of our effort is to convince the younger graduates of our universities, in particular our STEM graduates, that there is a future in entrepreneurship if they feel they have a product or a service that they can actually commercialise.
The fact that we have had success stories of companies that have been sold at significant valuations only, I think, fuels the interest of more young people to enter into this space. I think we’re at the beginning of what I hope would be a virtuous cycle. But let me repeat what I’ve said numerous times, I also discussed it today with the President of the European Council: “we’re not alone here. We’re part of Europe.”
And in general, when you look at innovation and entrepreneurship in Europe and compare it to the US, we’re not doing particularly well. One of the reasons why we’re not doing particularly well has to do with the regulatory burdens that many of the companies that are established in any European country face when they try to do business in another European country.
So this idea of what we call the ‘28th regime’, an EU-incorporated legal structure that will allow you to easily do business in all European countries. It’s something which is very much requested by our entrepreneurial community, and hopefully, something that we can work on at the European level.
And of course, I think another advantage that we have and what we can do as a government, and this is particularly relevant to artificial intelligence, is to have a regulatory regime within the confines of the AI Act, that encourages more innovation and that also offers those who are interested, anonymized but well curated data, and this is particularly relevant for healthcare, which is connected to the topic of your conference.
There is an ‘explosion’. And I do think that there’s one area where AI, unequivocally, is going to be beneficial. I have lots of concerns about other areas, but when you look at healthcare, there is tremendous interest by startups, Greek, foreign companies, to offer new services and new solutions that will use the data that we have.
So having a proper data management framework, especially for healthcare data, that is respectful of personal privacy, but also important and big enough for companies to actually use and develop new services is going to be, I think, an area where we can really lead in terms of innovation.
When asked about conducting clinical trials at a biobank in Greece, the Prime Minister stated:
I think it’s something we’re working with the Ministry of Health. They’re very much aware that we have lots of potential in terms of clinical trials. I think we have improved, but we clearly need to get better in terms of helping with recruiting and simplifying the bureaucracy.
I find the idea of a biobank fascinating, and I do think this is a project of national interest. We’re thinking now about how we will structure it and how we will explain to people that this is something which is actually going to be beneficial for the entire population. Not an easy thing to do in an era of misinformation and disinformation and a lot of scepticism about the government holding very important personal information.
So this is a topic I’ve asked my team to come up with specific suggestions, but I do think it’s something that the country needs. And I think we should really talk to the younger population and start with younger people who are more open and who are the ones who will most likely benefit in decades from now from us having this biobank established.
We’re looking at options and at potential partners, but we also need your cooperation as thought leaders to explain in simple words to people why this is important.
I think one of the very important steps we have taken has been if you look at our healthcare policy -beyond what’s happening in primary care and in hospitals- has been our preventative medicine strategy, which I think has been recognised also in Europe as really being at the forefront of a more modern approach towards health and has delivered measurable results. We have saved lives. And not only that, we have made people sensitive to the idea that you need to take care of your health when you’re healthy and not when you get sick. This is a sea change in terms of how we view health.
But, of course, it’s also giving us a lot of data. So if we have mammograms for hundreds of thousands of women. This is valuable data that can be used to drive more innovative solutions.
There’s a clear change in terms of how we view health. I think a lot of the cutting-edge work around longevity very much centres around what we can do today, when we’re healthy, to ensure that we will be healthy 10, 20, 30 years from now, or to ensure that when we get older, our quality of life will be better.
And a lot of it is very basic things: don’t smoke, don’t drink too much, be careful about what you eat. But as you get more sophisticated and identify new biomarkers, this will become more critical, more personalised, and much more sophisticated.
When asked what message he would send to young scientists and entrepreneurs taking their first steps in their careers, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said:
First of all, I do think that for young scientists, there are good jobs in Greece to be offered if you have a good CV. I think that’s very, very clear to me. And the job market is becoming more competitive. And also, as domestic companies scale up, as foreign companies come to Greece, why do they come? They come because they very much appreciate the talent pool, the product of our public universities.
And that’s why also many of the companies go where the universities are. That’s why you see, for example, a tech hub in Ioannina, not just in Thessaloniki or Patra. You see companies going to Crete because they are looking for the graduates of our universities. And that’s why I am quite optimistic about the potential to stay in Greece and have a productive future.
And of course, for those of you who will choose an entrepreneurial career, I think the chances of success are greater than they were maybe some years ago. No one can guarantee success in the business of entrepreneurship. But at least the ecosystem is there, the support is there, there’s more mentorship, there’s more capital, there is a community of people who think like you do and I think that the future for innovation and research is certainly brighter than what it was some years ago.
I think that if we also push through these reforms we are planning, we’re going to be more disciplined in terms of how we use whatever money we can spend. Because, again, it’s not that we can spend an obscene amount of money, but I want to make sure that whatever money we use, whether it’s European funds that we channelled to Greece, or whether it’s public funds, tax payers money, what I don’t want to see is I don’t want anyone questioning the quality of the evaluation.
I think we have excellent people from abroad who would help us. That’s what I envision. That’s what we talk also with ESETEK in terms of charting this new landscape. Again, I can hear the criticism: “Okay, why haven’t you done this already?” Trust me, we’re very busy with lots of things. We have made progress on this front, but I think now it’s time to really accelerate.
And frankly, because I want to be very honest, I found the public debate around innovation and research over the past months helpful also to me. I’m the first to always accept constructive criticism, if at the end of the day, it helps us to get better.
