EU Structural funds and their application in the field of support in research and innovation in the Czech Republic

The diploma thesis concentrates on the area of Structural funds of the European Union and their applications in the field of support in research and innovation in the Czech Republic. The main objective of this thesis is to provide the reader with a complex view of support in the field of research and innovation from the EU Structural funds in the programming period of 2007--2013 and also in the future period of 2014--2020. Partial objective is to evaluate the application of EU Structural funds on the basis of a specific operational programme supporting field of research and innovation. The research question is defined as the meaningfulness of settings of the operational programmes in the field of research and innovation and the evaluation of their effectiveness and sustainability. The first chapter introduces firstly the regional policy of European Union and its main instrument, the EU Structural funds and then concentrates shortly on the field of research and innovation in the Czech Republic. The second chapter focuses on the specific operational programmes which are supporting the field of research and innovation for both programming periods and furthermore evaluates the drawing of EU Structural funds in the Czech Republic. Lastly, the third chapter offers a practical application of the Structural funds of EU on the base of a specific operational programme, the Operational Programme Research and Development for innovation (OP R & DI). The main concentration is devoted to evaluating the sustainability of research and development centers supported by the OP R & DI