A country's innovativeness depends on various factors. Among them is a scale of the commercialisation of scientific achievements. The scale of the science commercialisation is one of results of an intensity of co-operation between science/ the R&D sector and industry/ enterprises. A good, i.e., wide and intensive co-operation is favourable to the science commercialisation and - in this way - contribute to the economy's innovativeness. So, science–industry relations (SIRs) are here of crucial importance. A state of SIRs is dependent, among other reasons, on a level of public understanding of science (PUS). A high PUS level well serves the cause of SIRs. In turn, PUS depends mainly on science communication with society as a whole, in this case, with industry or the business sector. A high level of PUS is then one of results of a good communication between science and industry.

Results of the commercialisation, i.e., of practical implementation of scientific achievements, are technological innovations. As known, innovation 'stands on two legs' : one leg still lies in R&D and another already in Production. Therefore, the 'passage' between R&D and Production is very important and so is the science–industry relations.

In this paper, Poland is a case in study. By the end of the 80s, Poland had a centrally planned economy and at the beginning of the 90s, radical politico-economic reforms started. The essence of the transformations has been the introduction of free-market forces into the national economy together with its deep restructuring. Innovations are expected to play a key role in the economy's restructuring. In the beginning of the transition, there existed two separate 'worlds' in the Polish economy, as a legacy of the previous system, i.e, science and industry.

In detail, at the beginning of transition, Poland had:

The present state of the affairs is still beyond being satisfactory and needs improvement.

The essence of the communication process is that a sender sends a message and a receiver reacts on it, so there is a two-way exchange of messages. The sender or communciator must answer three key questions :

Which may be called an 'AMT approach'

With any organisation's communication with its environment, a concept of Public Relations (PR) is closely connected. In literature, the concept is understood in various ways. Bernays (1955), treated PR as an element of social communication. Authors of Marketing coursebooks universally consider PR as a component of so-called marketing-mix (Lazer and Culle (1983), Kotler (1991) Schoell and Guiltinan (1995). In turn Black (1993), Scott et al (1994) and Gregory, Ed. (1998) treat PR as an element of a firm's management. In Black's opinion, PR is wider than advertising or propaganda, and goes far beyond marketing. Also many authors, including marketers, agree that PR is a broader concept than marketing.

As known, the concept of marketing-mix contains 4Ps : product, price, place (or distribution) and promotion. Promotion is an information activity with a purpose to promote (back up) a product/ service and its producer/ seller. So, the organisation here is an information sender, and the potential clint is an information receiver. This component of marketing-mix is now more and more often named as communication. Of course, not the change of name is important but the essence of this activity. Although its aim remains the same, this P is, nowadays, treated as a complex way of communicating between an organisation and the market where there exists a permanent exchange of information (feedback) between the two. Public Relations is one of four 'classic' forms or tools of Marketing Communication, besides advertising, personal selling and sales promotion. The role of PR as a communication instrument considerably increased in last decades.

"As the power of mass advertising weakens owing to rising media costs, increasing clutter and smaller audiences, marketing managers are turning more to PR. Clearly, public relations can make a memorable impact on public awareness at a fraction of the cost of advertising. The company does not pay for the space or time obtained in the media. It pays for a staff to develop and circulate the stories and manage certain events. lf the company develops an interesting story, it could be picked up by all the news media and be worth millions of dollars in equivalent advertising. Furthermore, it would have more credibility than advertising. Some experts say that consumers are five times more likely to be influenced by editorial copy than by advertising" (Kotler 1991, p.643).

For Kotler, who calls PR 'a marketing stepchild', the main aim of PR is to create a company's positive inage. For Black, it is a good reputation and proper publicity. Similarly, for Gregory (1998) and Pluta (2001), a firm's positive reputation is most important here. Kotler mentions ten following PR tools : press kits, speeches, seminars, annual reports, charitable donations, sponsorships, publications, community relations, lobbying and identity media; while Black embraces these in five groups:

As can be seen, both of them mention similar instruments. For instance, they include sponsoring and lobbying into PR, although in literature, there are authors who consider these separately.

The essence of public relations is well presented in the book 'The Essentials of Public Relations': PR is a science and art of achieving harmony with the environment through a mutual agreement based on the real and full information. Philosophy of PR assumes that aims are being achieved easier, with a social understanding and support than with an opposition or indifference (Black, 1993). The science sector, of course, needs the harmony with its environment and the mutual understanding and support from society. This proves that Public Relations as a communication tool is fully useful here.

In Poland, science needs good public relations because of the following reasons :

1. There have appeared symptoms of crisis in the Polish science, mainly from a financial point of view.

2. As mentioned, a low level of PUS exists in the country.

3. There is a lack of agreement among political elites that science (together with education) should be a priority in the country's development.

4. Managers in research organisations do not have enough skills to run marketing actions.

5. Soon Poland will join the European Union and so a competition will grow between research institutes within the country and in Brussels.

Generally speaking, Poland had sufficient experience in (political) propaganda in the previous system but very little experience in the filed of PR. According to a recent questionaire based servey among employees in 374 small and medium sized enterprises (Pluta, 2001), as many as 40 percent of them do not know about the concept of PR; and only 5 percent of the surveyed firms have separate PR units reporting directly to the board of directors. So, a general picture of PR in the country is unsatisfactory.

As far as public relations in science is concerned, Poland does have much experience. The main institutions responsible for science communication (dissemination, popularisation and promotion of sicence) are :

The Ministry of National Education plays unfortunately, a very small role in this system. In turn, a short description of the actitivites of the three remaining institutions (Jasinski, 2001) is given ahead.

The State Committee for Scientific Research (KBN) :

The Polish Academy of Sciences' Centre for Science Dissemination :

The Polish Foundation for Science Dissemination :

• Established in 1990

• A non-profit, non-governmental organisation (NGO)

• Main founder : the Polish Academy of Sciences

• Employment : five people (in 2001)

• The main aims :
  -to organise information systems on scientific achievements
  -to subsidise Polish scientific centres abroad scholarly societies and schools engaged in science dissemination
  -to conduct publishing, film and audiovisual projects, lecturing activities, training courses, etc.
  -to help researchers and other individuals in their efforts for science dissemination and popularisation.

Now a short discription of the role of Science Promotion Advisory Team (SPAT) (author of this paper is a member of SPAT). The Team's support goes in the following directions :

However, the main effort in the field of science communication activities is being undertaken by their initiators, i.e., scientific institutions, which constitute three sub-sectors of the Polish science sector :

In Poland, the sector of firms' in-house R&D units is almost non existent.

As far as Polish initiatives for the science dissemination, popularisation and promotion are concerned, apart from publications which are a natural tool of the science-society communication, one can also mention for instance (data from various KBN internal reports) :

For example, the latest VI Scientific Picnic, usually organized by the Polish Radio Bis, a state owned broadcasting company, took place on June 8, 2002. It was the biggest popular scientific happening in Poland. Central Chairman of the steering Committee was President of the earlier mentioned Polish Foundation for Science Dissemination. Financial supports were porvided by the Town Hall and the State Committee for Scientific Research.

Although, the above initiatives seem very interesting and should be continued, nevertheless, the following reservations can be formulated here (Jasinski, 2001) :

But the main shortcomings towards these activities were :

This state of affairs needs improvement. The philosophy of Public Relations as an element of marketing communication may be very helpful here. One can imagine that the following mechanism, explained in the figure, will function.

Make the figure from the original :

Thus, from the view-point of a scientific institution, we can expect the following chain reaction :

In case of science, public relations approch should be integrated in the presentation, in the activities and in all functions of science, as a public good – in the process of satisfying social needs. Following Black's classification, PR tools can be formulated in this case as follows :

According to the earlier mentioned AMT approach, a starting point should be identification of strategic groups of information receivers, in marketing called as target markets. Here we shall talk about target audience. In Poland, e.g., PR actions being undertaken by scientific institutions should be mainly addressed to :

Reaching target goups is the key task of public relations.The concept of market segmentation as known in marketing is extremely useful here. The segmentation allows us to identify segments of a given market and then to choose, from among them, one or more target markets (see Kotler, 1991; Schoell and Guiltinan, 1995.

In case of Poland, these target audiences for science ought to be divided into two groups :

Each group of the audiences requires various ways to communicate with. The methods must be adjusted to their information needs, which ought to be well recognised before. Let's notice that politicians (group 1), journalists (group 2), representatives of business associations (within group 3) and teachers (within group 4) are opinion leaders, very important for creating publicity and reputation of the science sector. Thus, they require an additional attention within PR actions.

The business sector (industry) vis a vis science in Poland needs greater intervention. The need of special treatment of the business sector within PR activities arise from a poor state of science-industry linkages in the field of technological innovation in Poland. The main symptoms of this state of affairs are (Jasinki, 2000) :

The fault lies on both sides. One of the reasons, as already mentioned, is a weak experience of research organisations in marketing. The Polish science needs good marketing – not only within the country but also abroad, in the European research market (within the process of integrating Poland with the European Union). Let's notice that marketing of science belongs to institutional marketing or, as it has been recently named, to B2B Marketing. This sort of marketing has its own specificity and is addressed not to consumers but to institutions, firms and other organisations, in our case – to industry. Therefore, institutional marketing experience can be useful here (Morris, 1992; Haas, 1995).

One must remember that the scientific organisation's intergrated marketing approach should contain all four Ps. In this field, we should talk about the market offer of science, containing a scientific product (service), properly priced and distributed; and skillfully promoted. Here the stress will be obviously put on promotion/ communication being an element of marketing mix, and precisely, on public relations as a marketing-communication instrument. It means that the other promotional tools like, advertising, will be omitted, although highly important in marketing of scientific research.

For the purpose of using PR, it is necessary to answer two questions :

The science sector offers the industry :

In turn, one may expect the industry's following reactions to PR actions undertaken by the science sector :

As a result, science in Poland can gain more finance for research and development, and so there will be a wider science offer and commercialisation.

A message addressed by science to industry within its PR activities should contain the following watchwords :

And a final issue : How to reach with this message to those recipients who need it? Marketing philosophy may be helpful here. The adoption of selected market research methods can be useful to identify potential receivers and their information needs.

So, there is a world of total usefulness of the AMT approach and public relations. One needs to admit and emphasise the enormous potential of it, hitherto underestimated by Polish scientists.