Innovation management in Pilsen region and comparison with neigboring bavarian regions

Innovations are key factor for developing of the regions and their competitiveness. There are significant regional discrepancies in the Pilsen region, with specific regions along the border with Bavaria. On one hand, there is economically strong core area around the Pilsen agglomeration, and on the other hand, on contrary with this fact, there are poor borderland regions. The result of those regional discrepancies, having their roots in past, is weakening of the regional cohesion that finally leads to impairing of its competitiveness in terms of current integration process within the EU. Ascertainment of the innovation potential of the Pilsen region and comparing its competitiveness with neighboring Bavarian regions should be a fundamental material that can help to seek tools for efficient regional development of borderland regions. Their innovation potential is expected to be lower in comparison with the core regions, their competitive advantage is, however, their geographical position. They are located near to richer Bavarian regions and thus influences of the borders effects are expected. Diffusion effect and effect of potentially different could positively influence the situation in the Czech borderland. That’s why the authors also measured the innovation potential in neighboring Bavarian region. The goal of this territorial analysis was the socio-economic structure of targeted area, regional discrepancies (in terms of demography, education and employment), innovation potential of local businesses, research and development, and how those issues are interconnected with commercial sector. Results of the research are maps of indexes of innovations in sub regions. It is obvious, that there is a strong concentration of innovative activities to Pilsen and there are different approaches to innovation in the Pilsen region in comparison with Bavaria. The institutions focused on innovation infrastructure within the Pilsen region are mostly located into Pilsen. If there is a stakeholder interested in innovation outside of Pilsen, information innovation centers (which are only a few, though) refer this stakeholder into Pilsen. Innovation information centers in Bavaria are, on the other hand, very dispersed. These centers are closer to the stakeholders of regional development and they are active in disseminating of innovation effort and possibilities in their target area. If we look at the EU globally, we can see that Bavarian regions belong to top innovative regions, however the Pilsen region (the part of NUTS2 Jihozapad) belongs to group of “slightly innovating members”. Based on the research, the Pilsen region could be recommended to focus its attention more to regional innovative centers