The paper deals with the potential relationship between higher education and entrepreneurial activities. Universities and other higher education institutions could be seen as boosting entrepreneurship in the region. University graduates could be more often involved in starting up a new business and the university itself could commercialize their innovations by creating academic spin-off companies. The paper aims to examine the potential effect of higher education on the probability of starting a business as well as its further success. Based on the data for 40 EU and non-EU countries, retrieved from a Eurobarometer survey, we conducted probit and IV probit regressions. These have tested the assumed relationship between higher education and entrepreneurial activities. Our results strongly suggest that higher education can often be very beneficial for starting up a new business and this seems to be one of the factors determining the success of new businesses. Furthermore, those respondents who attended courses related to entrepreneurship appear to be more active in starting-up a business and this seems to be also positively correlated with the company's future success. Interestingly, university graduates from Brazil, Portugal and India in particular, tend to appreciate the role that their universities have played in acquiring the skills to enable them to run a business.

Abstract. The paper deals with the problem of innovation support and economic development at the regional level. The innovation potential still differs significantly among the EU regions. Perhaps the key factor determining innovation potential and performance of a region is R&D expenditure. The main aim of the paper is to test the potential relationship between gross domestic expenditure on R&D and economic development of the regions. Our dataset consists of the data on the regions of four Visegrad countries during the period of 2001-2014. We assume the existence of non-linear relationship and expect that R&D expenditures are significantly lower in less developed regions. Using the panel Granger causality and panel regression analysis based on these data, we provide insight into the potential relationship between regional economic development measured in terms of GDP per capita and investments in R&D controlling for the number of R&D employees. Our results strongly suggest that higher regional GDP per capita is associated with higher regional gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) per inhabitant. GERD per capita appears to be exponentially rising with regional GDP per capita. We have also found significant regional disparities in terms of innovation performance.

Background: Transfer of knowledge from academia to business is one of the crucial issues for creating innovation. Creation of university spin-offs could significantly improve this transfer. Objectives: The main scientific aim is to examine the differences between universities in European countries and identify factors affecting the probability of creating the university spin-off. The paper is also focused on the differences in the specialization and financial sources of universities. Methods/Approach: We compare selected indicators for higher education institutions in European countries and examine potential determinants affecting the probability of academic spin-off formation. With respect to the main aim, the logit and probit regression analyses have been used. Results: Our results show that the creation of spin-offs is typical on the one hand for highly specialized universities or on the other hand for universities with a wide variety of study programs. They should also have an optimum number of doctoral students and have mostly less funding from tuition fees. Conclusions: Several indicators appear to play an important role in the formation of university spin-off. These indicators are the level of specialization, the share of tuition fees in the University budget, and the share of Ph.D. and foreign students.

Innovation and R&D are becoming a prominent part of policies of countries and transnational unions such as the European Union. This is shown in strategy "Europe 2020" established by EU which prompts member states to invest 3 % of their GDP in R&D. R&D expenditure is an important indicator of innovation performance of a country. However, it is not only important to look at R&D expenditure as one aggregate indicator, but to also consider the contributions of various innovation actors to R&D funding. Since fi rms are known to be the main innovation actor that creates the biggest amount of innovation in national innovation system, the paper is focused on fi nancing of business R&D. The aim of the paper is to examine business R&D funding from resources of main innovation actors and to analyze the impact of public support of R&D on private R&D investment in EU member states. The research is based on descriptive statistics as well as panel regression and correlation analysis and cluster analysis of 28 EU member states. Our results suggest that the main source used to fund business R&D comes from business sector, followed by public support and resources from abroad. The cluster analysis resulted in four clusters based on the structure of business R&D fi nancing in the EU countries. The analysis of substitution effect of public support of R&D suggests that public support has a positive effect on private investment in business R&D, with the raise of public support for business R&D of 0.1011 % GDP resulting in 1 % increase in business funded R&D expenditure.

BackgroundA significant share of business innovation arises from information and communication (ICT) sector. Business investment into research and development (R&D) activities can be seen as an important basis for innovation, which can further lead to better economic performance. This can be especially true for the ICT sector.ObjectivesThe paper examines the share of the ICT sector on innovation and the total R&D expenditure in selected European countries. Furthermore, our aim is to test the potential positive correlation between R&D expenditure, productivity and the value added in the sector.Methods/ApproachThe goals of the paper has been tested by empirical data analysis using the pane regression analysis. We examined panel data for 24 European countries in the 2008-2016 period.ResultsThe highest share of business R&D expenditure in ICT has been captured in Nordic countries. Firms in ICT appear to be innovative above the average and represent a significant share in the total business R&D expenditure.ConclusionsWe found a positive correlation between R&D expenditure and both value-added and apparent labour productivity in the ICT sector. We believe that this could be to some extent attributed to the innovation of products and processes. Hence, the government support in the form of R&D tax incentives can be also beneficial for the economic performance of ICT firms.