Assessment of Spatial Effects from Innovation Activities in the Industrialized Russian Regions

• Published in: Ekonomika regiona no. 1; p. 268
• Main Authors: Averina, L M, Sirotin, D V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Russian
• Published: Yekaterinburg Institute of economics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 01-01-2020
• Subjects: Cooperation; Economic growth; Innovations; Regions; Trends; Russia
• ISSN: 2072-6414; 2411-1406

In recent years, inter-regional cooperation has increased in one of the most important areas of economy, namely, its innovative development. The Strategy of Spatial Development of the Russian Federation for the period until 2025 set various aims for scientific, technological and innovative development of the country. Inter-regional cooperation is one of the means for achieving these aims. Thus, we decided to examine interactions between closely located innovation-active territories such as entities of the Russian Federation and promising federal centres of economic growth. The study focuses on 8 industrialised innovation-active entities located on the territory of the Urals, Volga region and Western Siberia. The administrative centres of these regions rank as promising centres of economic growth and have opportunities to establish world-class Research and Educational Centres. For assessing the level of interaction between the regions in terms of innovation activity, we applied a method of spatial autocorrelation. Drawing on the Moran’s test, we assessed the autocorrelation between geographically close territories based on the data for 2007, 2013 and 2018. We took into account possible transformations of dynamic spatial effects caused by external and internal changes. According to the study, in 2007, a trend of regional clustering in terms of innovation activity was identified in certain areas of the Siberian Federal District (Novosibirsk and Tomsk oblasts). By 2013, this trend only increased due to the inclusion of Omsk oblast in this group of territories. Moreover, in the same year the signs of regional clustering in terms of innovation activity caused by spatial effects were discovered in the territories of the Volga Federal District. They appeared due to similar processes occurring in the special industries for these regions, such as petrochemistry and engineering. In 2018, the noted trends continued, while in Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk oblasts the spatial effects (calculated based on a single innovation activity factor) were not discovered. Legislative and executive authorities can use the research findings for shaping and updating drafts of State programs and strategies of spatial development of the entities of the Russian Federation.