The impact of local innovation systems support on local development for cross-border regions of the eastern Poland

The objective of this paper is to prove the positive impact of public support for the relationships within the triple helix model on the local development of the Eastern Poland cross-border regions. The method used to prove the impact was econometric model based on backward stepwise multiple regression in which the explanatory variables were public spending aggregated into 44 categories dedicated to triple helix model. The model defines a theoretical framework of local innovation systems in 87 districts of the cross-border regions in the Eastern Poland (Lublin, Podlaskie, Subcarpathian and Warmian-Masurian voivodeships). Economic aggregate was chosen as a dependent variable in the model, based on average salaries in the district, treated as a measure of local development. The Triple helix model, describing the relationships between science-business-administration, is treated as a template for creating local innovation systems. Such relationships were supported by public expenditures of the European Union cohesion policy in 2007-2013. Within 75 intervention criteria, 44 ones were dedicated to different relationships in the triple helix model, ie. 9 variables on innovative activity connected to the science-business relationships, 25 variables associated with technical infrastructure related to administration-business relationships and 10 variables assigned to the knowledge infrastructure linked with the administration-science relationships. Two hypotheses were proposed in the paper. In the first one, there was expressed a presumption for positive impact of statistically significant expenditures on innovative activity, technical and knowledge infrastructure for local development of the Eastern Poland cross-border regions. The hypothesis was tested in basic and extended variant. In the second one, there was expressed a presumption, in which public expenditures on knowledge infrastructure were more influential for local development of the Eastern Poland cross-border regions than expenditures on technical infrastructure. As a result of the econometric modelling the first hypothesis was confirmed in basic variant and rejected in the extended variant.