Analysis of the investments intervention effect from operational programmes upon the R&D infrastructure of the Czech public universities

An analysis of the investments intervention effect from operational programmes in the programming period 2007–2013 upon the R&D infrastructure of the Czech public universities is presented. The analysis was based upon publicly available data, universities´ annual economic reports, and evaluations and analyses. A few indicators have been selected to quantify the effect of significant extension and upgrade of the universities´ R&D infrastructure where investments from structural funds amounted to 36 % of the universities´ total R&D expenditure. The effect of the financial intervention upon the performance in basic research was evaluated firstly by making use of the increase of publications number in impacted journals in the time windows 2009–2011 and 2015–2017, i.e. before the effective launch of the interventions, and after their termination. The share of foreign public funds (structural funds excluded) in the total R&D expenditure was the second indicator used. The effect upon the applied research performance was evaluated by comparing the difference of the number of patents and by the change in the share of private sources in the R&D expenditure. The analyses show an increase of the number of publications whereas the change in the share of the foreign public funds in the total R&D expenditure did not induce any positive trend. In parallel with the number of publications, the number of patents increased, too. The change in the share of the private sources in the R&D expenditure was unequivocally associated with a positive trend, especially in the out-of-Prague technical universities. For a more robust evaluation of the effect of the interventions financed by the structural funds an analogous analysis should be carried out after a longer time than the mere three years after the termination of the interventions.