Abstract:

The aim of the paper is to assess the impact of the level of regional development on the effectiveness of public R&D expenditures in the EU regions. The research was based on the data for the 190 European regions over the period 2007-2016, extracted from the Eurostat database and the Regional Innovation Scoreboards (RIS) of the European Union, that provides a comparative assessment of innovation performance at the regional level. In order to test the formulated hypothesis we have decided to employ structural equation modelling. Our findings indicate that the overall level of economic development drives the effectiveness of public R&D expenditures both directly and indirectly - through the R&D activities conducted in the business sector.