Assessment of Russian regions by level of innovative development

Abstract

Innovation activity of Russian regions is considered in two aspects, i.e., creation of innovations and use of innovations. A methodology for assessing the regional level of innovative development is presented. In order to identify the regions’ specialization in different aspects of innovation activity, we constructed two indices of innovative development, i.e., the index of innovation creation and the index of innovation use. Each region receives a numerical estimate for its level of innovative development. Regions are ranked based on these values and assessed as developed or backward. We analyze regions appearing to be leaders in innovative development and assess the stability of their group and leadership position. It is shown that innovations are created in the same leading regions, the number of which (19 regions) remains almost the same over the entire considered period, but they are used in 41 regions, the set of which changes from year to year. Ranking of regions makes it possible to compare innovation levels and to determine strengths and weaknesses of particular innovation systems, which can be taken into account in designing state innovation policy.