Research and Development and its Spatial Implications in the Context of the Europe 2020 Strategy

Research and development and innovation are key policy components of the Europe 2020 strategy. These elements should play a key role in securing the competitiveness of the whole EU in the future while maintaining internal territorial cohesion. By contrast the above mentioned activities naturally tend to the spatial clustering. In this paper the authors elaborate on the situation of the Czech Republic and its regions in relation to the Europe 2020 strategy target on Research and Development. The objective of the paper is to analyse selected research and development aspects from the quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The quantitative part reflects flows of the inputs related to the R&D activities. The qualitative part is extracted from a survey conducted by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic in 2014. Survey is focused on the cooperation among relevant actors of the R&D collaboration. The outcomes show that the greatest barriers of cooperation among relevant actors are represented by bureaucratic burden.