Spatially blind or place based policy? A comparison of innovation support in the Czech and Slovak Republic

Abstract

With the ongoing changes in development of the European Union, also conditions for fi nancial support are changing. For Central Europe, most fi nancial aid comes from Cohesion policies. The same applies for the support of innovations, which are considered to be a driving force of development. One of the main debates concerning cohesion policy is the issue of “placed based” versus “spatially blind” policies. Their role mainly differs within the area of economic growth. This paper deals with the evaluation of innovation support as a driving force for economic growth from structural funds in two neighbouring EU member states – in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. This article provides a picture of what kinds of policies are implemented and how consequently the resources of the European Union are territorially distributed to support innovation. We especially dealt with the question of the support criteria for projects and their role in the implementation of support. Based on this, the paper tries to identify where assistance is concentrated and how the criteria infl uence the geographical distribution of this support. As a result, we found that, despite very similar spatially blind policies in both countries and very similar systems of providing support, they still have very different regional effects. In the Czech Republic, support was allocated to developed regions and high tech sectors to a greater extent. In the Slovak Republic, support was concentrated more on disadvantaged regions and in traditional sectors with lower added value. It shows the need to pay much more attention not only to policy set up, but also to policy implementation.