European Journal of Service Management

The importance of innovation is reflected in EU policies which provide large funds for member states on the development of innovation. Despite the large interventions innovativeness of the Polish economy is relatively low. This situation is particularly evident in relation to the SME sector companies. This dichotomy is an important subject of research in the field of economy the SME sector, and the applications can make a significant contribution to the strategy of building aid policy in the field of innovation financing. The purpose of this article is to analyze the efficiency of the use of EU funds for the development of innovation in the Polish SME sector. The author puts the research hypothesis: (H1): allocation of EU funds does not affect significantly the efficiency of innovation activities carried out by Polish SME companies. In order to verify the hypothesis author conducted to compare the effects of innovative activity of SMEs include the division of the company that benefited from EU funds for the development of innovation and the company that not exploited EU funds. The author used the method of the survey. The study was conducted in the years 2014–2016 on a sample of 400 SME sector. In addition, author conducted a critical analysis of the literature of the subject and has used commonly available statistics.