Innovation vouchers as a segment of regional innovation strategy

摘要

South Moravia region in Czech Republic in the middle of Europe has got a traditional strong and expanding basis in the research and development area formed by college students and scientists and industry. The structure of these students and scientists is also favourable because it is focused on disciplines of biology and engineering. The key approach how to improve the situation is to support innovative small and medium enterprises with a high added value that direct their attention to the introduction of novel and better products and services and also to the introduction of new approaches. A political consensus of all parties involved represent a cardinal advantage in a process of introducing the system supporting the innovative business. Universities, the regional political representation and representatives of the City of Brno have managed to find a common ground and came to an agreement regarding goals that are mentioned in the Regional Innovation Strategy. One of the target is to reach successful cooperation between industry and universities. One of the very important tool, which was implemented are Innovation vouchers. Innovation vouchers are small lines of credit provided by governments to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to purchase services from public knowledge providers with a view to introducing innovations new products, processes or services in their business operations. Innovation voucher has been implemented in Czech Republic since 2009 and the project quickly inspired other regions and today the company's innovation vouchers require total in eleven regions of the Czech Republic. By 2013 it was in the Czech Republic filed 1456 application issued 462 vouchers. The aim of the study is to analyse the state of innovation activities and to give an overview of implementation innovation vouchers as an effective tools of transfer technology.