Environmentally Sound Technology: Is Poland Overcoming Soviet-Type Learning Barriers?

This paper suggests that specific circumstances provide substantial - and historic - opportunities for Poland as a pioneer of a 'greener post-communism'. These are: the paradoxical effects of membership in the Soviet bloc which present the Polish reformers with important opportunities for environmentally sound modernization and nature conservation; the technological revolution on a global scale concurrent with the Velvet Revolution; and new environmentally sound technologies which are increasingly available for transfers in the form of environmental aid. Approaches to 'technological revolutions', life-cycle timing in 'entry' and introduction of innovations, 'technology assimilation' into the Polish 'system of innovation' and experiences from technology transfers to Poland and the former Eastern bloc, including Russia, suggest that success in capitalizing on these opportunities for environmentally sound modernization will depend on the ability to overcome prevailing barriers to learning and technology assimilation. The paper suggests an assimilation analysis for assessing Polish environmentally sound technological learning; in doing this, the major task is to integrate 'technology assimilation' and 'international regime concepts into the approaches of 'national systems of innovation', 'longer waves' and technological entry into life-cycle 'phases'. National systems of innovation are suggested to capitalize on the global diffusion of technological waves, systems and singular technologies depending on adaptation (such as integration into the European Union) and accommodation of institutional set-ups (overcoming barriers) in order to improve assimilation (e.g. through technological life-cycle entry policies). At the inter-national systems level, international regimes create specific constraints to the entry or choice through norms, rules and governance. Because national systems are unequally successful in such assimilation, there is an asymmetry at the level of inter-national systems of innovation.