Measurement the effectiveness of external support for innovation

Innovation activities of enterprises are a prerequisite for competitive advantage and long-term existence of the company. The competitive advantage of the whole economy, of course, depends on the competitiveness of firms. Because innovation is becoming an increasingly important tool for companies to maintain long-term competitive advantage, talk about the suitability of the possible tools to measure innovation performance is becoming more intense. There is no consensus on what that data for assessment of innovation performance perfect. There are scale transnational, national, sectoral and enterprise. This article aims to assess the current status and direction of the Czech Republic, according to some measurements possible and to focus on the permanent marking of weaknesses, especially the effectiveness of external financing innovation. The article attempts to analyze the impact of external financial support for innovation activities of companies on their financial indicators for projects financed from the Operational Programme Enterprise and Innovation. The program is evaluated positively, but especially on the absorption of and views of respondents who received funds. The analysis will be conducted on publicly available data with all the limitations of the resulting - above all unavailability of financial indicators referring only to a specific innovation project. It can be said that programs like OPEI may be a source of additional funding, as with any source of external financing. This limits the role of the state in financial support innovation directly. It is for consideration whether to generate additional funds to support innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises would not be appropriate to use more indirect forms of support (tax relief, removing the administrative burden, transparency, etc.) to enable innovative companies to raise capital internally. It is better if the company can finance its further development of the own resources without waiting for the grant programs