The research and development in the engineering field in the higher education system of the Czech Republic and its international comparison

• Published in: Ergo (Warsaw) 2016-06, Vol.11 (1), p.3-11
• Main Authors: Kučera, Zdeněk, Vondrák, Tomáš
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: bibliometric analysis; patent analysis; research and development in the engineering field
• ISSN: 1802-2170; 1802-2006; 1802-2170
• DOI: 10.1515/ergo-2016-0001

The Czech Republic is at the forefront of the EU in the contribution of the manufacturing to the total gross value added. The Czech industry contributes significantly to the positive balance of trade of the country. The overall international competitiveness of the Czech Republic will depend upon the innovation performance of the manufacturing sector and its competitiveness on the foreign markets. A necessary condition for extending the share on the foreign markets is the effective harnessing of the national R&D capacity and a strong qualified local workforce. This contribution uses a bibliometric and a patent analysis for the assessment of the R&D carried out by the Czech higher education institutions (HEIs) oriented towards the engineering fields, and selected more general universities, and compares them with similar HEIs in a selected group of developed countries. The analysis indicates that the Czech publication activity in the field of engineering grows. The Czech publications in engineering are cited below the world average which indicates that their impact (and to some extent the quality of the underlying R&D) lags behind the world. The patent activity of the Czech HEIs is on the international scale rather weak. The patenting activity of the Czech HEIs strongly grows since the middle of the last decade. This may by a side effect of the new evaluation methodology which takes into account also the patents. The number of patents registered with the Czech Industrial Property Office increases but on the other hand the international patenting activities tend to stagnate. This gives rise to questions about the real value of the produced patents from the point of their importance for the export competitiveness of the Czech industry.