legal and financial instruments supporting the innovation and technology transfer

Issues of innovation and technology transfer are framed by a broad legislation and financial schemes at the European and national level. In context of the strategy Europe 2020 and the initiative Innovation Union, the mutual interconnection between the new knowledge creation and its economic valuation is important for competitiveness of the economy. Innovation systems are characterized by a large scale of different actors and dynamic interactions between them. The intensity of the innovation activity of enterprises is mostly influenced by the level of their legal awareness and by the ability to utilize the innovation mechanisms and opportunities for transfer of knowledge, modern technologies and practices. The paper characterizes selected legal and financial mechanisms and points out the possibilities and problems related to their implementation in economic sphere, particularly in the agrifood sector. At the beginning, the authors describe the key aspects of the innovation policy and technology transfer in the EU and Slovakia. Next parts of the paper are focused on the issue of legal institutes concerning the industrial property and on the financial instruments for the period 2014-2020 emphasizing the innovative ones and possibilities of their combination. In the final part, the authors point out the barriers and possibilities in innovation implementation and in the process of transfer of technologies and knowledge to economic sphere.