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Słowa kluczowe: infrastruktura transportowa, polityka spójności, inteligentny rozwój, fundusze unijne, innowacje, inteligentne specjalizacje, Unia Europejska, Polska Abstract: The paper discusses the use of EU funds in the field of transport infrastructure and smart development. It was pointed out that the distance in the level of economic development dividing Polish regions from the EU average is gradually decreasing, and the use of EU funds helps all Polish regions to approach the average level of development of the EU. Although the convergence process is uneven, it has been pointed out that the funds available under cohesion policy, allow, to a certain extent, to stop the process of regional diversifying in the regions. An analysis of the benefits Poland gained from the cohesion policy in the field of transport infrastructure and intelligent development is presented . The possibilities of support from structural funds in the scope of investments aimed, among others, at strengthening research, technological development and innovation were studied in this paper. The EU strategic documents pertaining to the above-mentioned areas were also reviewed in in this study.

Abstract. Authors analyze economic development of Poland in the period [2004][2005][2006][2007][2008][2009][2010][2011][2012][2013][2014][2015] in the context of both the impact of the membership of the European Union on the country's economy and of the middle-income trap into which, as some experts assert, the country has most likely fallen despite relatively dynamic economic growth. In our opinion the impact of the EU membership, which stems i.a. from the infusion of the Cohesion Policy's co-fi nancing and -which appears to be more even important from the perspective of long-term development -from the establishment of eff ective mechanisms for conducting conscious development policy based on identifying and pursuing longterm strategic goals, is highly positive. Th e progress in catching up with the average development level of the EU countries is slowing, however, and there are indications that the country has already fallen into the middle-income trap. Authors discuss various factors contributing to Poland's susceptibility to the said trap, enumerating i.a. insuffi cient rate of bridging the productivity gap vis-à-vis the EU average, which in turn stems from insuffi cient level of innovation, suboptimal quality of the institutional and regulatory conditions and the deteriorating demographic structure. We also assert that unless decisive strategic actions are designed and implemented all those factors will have increasingly negative impact on the development of the Polish economy. Finally authors underline that far-sighted development plans do exist, but at the same time indicate that far-reaching eff orts will be required to modify the model of economic development and to meet the set strategic objectives.

The following study aims at presenting the scale and impact of the projects concerning the development of the transport infrastructure in Poland co-financed from the European Union’s funds. The authors present the hypothesis that to date the impact of the said projects (implemented within the framework of both National Development Plan 2004-2006 and the National Strategic Reference Framework 2007-2013) is – due to both prolonged period of negligence in this area and dynamic economic development – not significant enough to satisfy the existing needs in the analyzed area. It is emphasized, however, that the said projects have constituted an important part of the investment effort aimed at systematic improvement of the transportation system in Poland. The authors assert not only that in order to meet the existing needs in this field the investment process should continue under the framework of the financial perspective 2014-2020, but also that the continued development of the transport infrastructure should be based on the network-based paradigm and grounded in a solid institutional framework.