Spatial and sectoral differentiation of support to innovative companies from EU funds in Czechia

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to introduce a case study of Czechia in distribution of the EU funds and their spatial patterns. EU funds receive plenty attention from both European society and the scientific community. However, there is a lack of detailed evaluations of spatial and sectoral differentiation, which might bring a better understanding to the whole EU funds system. This paper attempts to fill this gap with a method of geographical differentiation analysis of the Czech operational programme Enterprise and Innovations 2007–15, which should increase the competitiveness of industry and develop services for commercial activities. Historically, subsidies often go to peripheral regions at the borderland with Slovakia and Poland, while regions along the borders with Germany and Austria receive only a low level of support. Jurisdictions of the major recipients from hi-tech sectors are mainly in the close vicinity of the largest cities (Praha, Brno), which are natural centres of high technologically demanding sectors, but a high share of high-tech subsidies goes to some peripheral districts as well. These findings can contribute not only to the academic discussion about contradictory developmental impacts of subsidies but to the all-European debate on the EU funds purposes as well.

KEYWORDS:

• EU funds
• innovations
• economic geography
• regional development
• Czechia

Acknowledgements

The authors would further like to thank Viktor Květoň and Jiří Tomeš for valuable comments on draft versions of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

David Hána http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8199-3013

Lenka Hellebrandová http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9795-0915

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Charles University (Univerzita Karlova) under SVV [number 260425] (Lenka Hellebrandová) and the Czech Science Foundation (Grantová Agentura České Republiky) under Historical Geography Research Centre [number P410/12/G113] (David Hána).