Page 14 - IDEA Study 8 2017 Direct subsidies and R&D output in firms

technology, with the ultimate goal of reducing the gap in economic development between the Czech Republic and advanced EU countries. The programme focused on supporting R&D projects that developed new materials, manufacturing products, production technologies and information control systems and technologies. For more details, see MIT (2003, 2011). The TIP programme followed on from IMPULS not only chronologically but also in terms of its design. The programme was expected to boost competitiveness of the Czech economy and thus indirectly generate new jobs. The main focus was on funding R&D on new materials and products, new advanced technologies and new information and management systems. The primary target group of the programme was small and medium business enterprises engaged in industrial production. For more details see MIT (2009, 2013). The ALFA programme was introduced to gradually replace TIP at the point when the new TA CR was supposed to take over from the MIT as the dominant provider of public support to business R&D; the latter was however later reversed by a new government. The programme’s main objectives were to strengthen performance of businesses and increase competitiveness of the economy. The programme focused on supporting R&D in the fields of advanced technologies, materials and systems, energy resources, environmental protection and sustainable development of transport. The programme aims to promote public-private R&D collaboration. For more details see TA CR (2010, 2017b). Table 1 provides a basic overview of the programmes by their calls for proposals. IMPULS was divided into five calls, while TIP and ALFA were each organized in four calls. The calls are dated by the first year in which the subsidized projects started to receive funding, which is denoted by “(t)” henceforth. In most cases the call was announced and the proposals evaluated during the preceding year, which implies “(t-1)”.4 All projects funded through IMPULS and TIP have been completed already, while some projects supported in the third and most in the fourth ALFA calls are still running. Nevertheless, as explained in more detail below, due to delays in reporting and data availability the full micro data is only accessible up to 2013, and incomplete data up to 2015. All three programmes were quite large, funding hundreds of projects from budgets in billions of CZK. TIP had the largest total budget, ALFA supported the most projects, 4 The only exceptions are the third call of IMPULS and the first call of TIP, both of which were announced in January and provided funding before the end of the same calendar year. 12