Abstract
The public funds have become a major source of finance for clusters in the last decade, also in European countries. The source of financing clusters and innovation performance of the countries is directly connected to subjects of the national/regional cluster policy, i.e. to its centralisation. The paper examines the relationship between European country attitude towards financial support provided for cluster and country innovative performance in a sample of 125 clusters from 25 European countries. The own empirical investigation is based on primary research using the Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney tests with Bonferroni. The investigation is focused on facts whether statistically significant differences in the amount of subsidies from national, regional, local and “European” levels between clusters in European countries influence their level of innovation performance. The finding shows that there are no statistically significant differences in the exploitation of resources from the Structural Funds and community programmes of the EU in the examined clusters in the countries with different levels of innovation performance. However, the clusters in the countries with higher levels of innovation performance receive funds in the form of central government and regional self-government subsidies more frequently than the clusters in the countries with lower levels of innovation performance.
Highlights
According to a number of studies, public funds have become a major source of finance for clusters in the last decade, in the European countries in particular; in Japan, South Korea or the USA (Barsoumian et al 2011; Meier zu Köcker 2009; Oxford Research AS 2008; Borrás, Tsagdis 2008; OECD 2007; Sölvell et al 2003)
The approach of European countries towards financial support provided for clusters and towards the amount of such support varies from country to country
In total 834 clusters from the European countries were addressed and a total of 125 cluster representatives properly responded to the questionnaires
Summary
According to a number of studies, public funds have become a major source of finance for clusters in the last decade, in the European countries in particular; in Japan, South Korea or the USA (Barsoumian et al 2011; Meier zu Köcker 2009; Oxford Research AS 2008; Borrás, Tsagdis 2008; OECD 2007; Sölvell et al 2003). The countries tend to perceive differently where the support to clusters should come from – whether from the national or regional/local public sources, or possibly from the Structural Funds. The main objective of the article is to study differences in amount of subsidies from national, regional, local and “European” levels between clusters in European countries and to investigate, whether the financing of clusters from the closer territorial level (regional, national) is in a positive relation to country innovation performance
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