Ownership and size dimension of regional business R&D expenditure within application sectors of the Czech RIS3 strategy

The article follows the analysis of business R&D expenditure in application sectors of the National Research and Innovation Strategy for Smart Specialisation of the Czech Republic and especially the analysis of regional dimension of expenditure mentioned above, both published in this journal earlier. The article aims at analysing and assessing business R&D expenditure in regional specialisation domains according to the ownership and size structure of businesses performing R&D. The volumes of expenditure are compared for two periods: the period 2015–2018 when the regional RIS3 strategies were implemented and the preceding four-year period 2011-2014. The share of domestic companies in expenditure within regional specialisation domains is considerably lower than the share of foreign-owned companies. Furthermore, during the implementation of the regional RIS3 strategies the share of domestic companies decreased – particularly in the regions with the highest growth of concentration of expenditure into the regional specialisation domains. According to relatively strong correlation between the increasing concentration of expenditure into foreign-owned companies and large companies, the position of domestic companies and SMEs is not very favourable in some of the key application sectors. This finding should be taken into account by policy makers modifying the regional RIS3 strategies.