Subsidies for applied research in culture: The supported projects were applied in practice. However, the Ministry of Culture does not evaluate the benefits of the allocated funds
Press release on audit No 21/16 – 14 March 2022
The Supreme Audit Office examined how the Ministry of Culture (MoC) provided targeted aid for applied research and development between the years 2016 and 2020. The financial aid was aimed at research that was expected to produce results applicable in practice. Under the programme1, the MoC paid more than CZK 1.6 billion to beneficiaries for a total of 156 projects. The SAO examined how the aid was distributed by the MoC, but it also focused on 18 selected projects worth more than CZK 322 million. The audit reveals that it is going to be difficult – for systemic reasons – for the MoC to assess the economic and social benefits of the targeted aid. Moreover, the MoC has not always acted consistently vis-à-vis beneficiaries. On a positive note, it can be said that the supported projects produced tangible results applicable in practice.
Although the MoC distributed more than CZK 1.6 billion to beneficiaries between the years 2016 and 2020, it did not set any indicators in order to assess the economic and social benefits of the allocated funds. However, this was the main purpose and basic objective of the MoC for the allocation of aid in the field of research and development.
Out of the 18 audited projects, 13 were without serious weaknesses and achieved all the expected results. In five cases, on the other hand, the auditors found that the projects did not always lead to fulfilling all the planned results. Overall, the SAO welcomed the fact that the allocated funds generated results that could be applied in practice. These included, for example, methodological practices in the field of cultural heritage restoration, text analysis tools, software enabling access to historical audio-visual data, and so on.
Beneficiaries — most often universities, public research institutions, and state-funded organisations — had to comply with a number of conditions in order to receive aid. One of the conditions was to submit to the MoC the plans for the implementation of the research results. The beneficiary was required to submit such a plan before its project was closed, and subsequently, for a period of five years, the beneficiary was obliged to inform the MoC on the progress of the plan’s implementation. However, the MoC did not require such plans from the beneficiaries between the years 2019 and 2020. This changed only in the course of SAO’s audit.
In addition, the auditors found that in one case the MoC amended the final evaluation of the project at a time when it had already been completed and evaluated.
1] ‘Programme for the support of applied research and experimental development of a national cultural identity for the years 2016 to 2022 (NAKI II)’.