ABSTRACT

After World War II Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria belonged to the Soviet Bloc. These countries experienced centralised political and economic systems and specialisations imposed within the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. During that time, the Research, Technology Development and Innovation (RTDI) system was highly centralised with the leading role of a special minister or a committee for science and technology. The democratic centralism allows for feedback from bottom to top, but RTDI actors had very limited impact on decisionmaking process (Meske, 1998). At the beginning of 1990s the democratic political and economic transformation began in these countries,1 but the regional territorial dimension and stakeholders’ participation became more important in light of their EU adhesion prospects around 2000 as they began to digest the European Union (EU) Cohesion Policy approach.