Эк
ономиче
ск
ое развитие и рос
т
23
Management of innovations:
present day features and prospects in Russia
Svetlana Sergeevna Boeva, graduated
Saint-Petersburg University of economics
Mikhail Dmitriyevich Pashkov, graduated
Saint-Petersburg University
Боева
Светлана Сергеевна, выпускник
Санкт-Петербургский государственный экономический университет
Пашков Михаил Дмитриевич, магистрант
Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет
T
he whole world today speaks about innovations due to
the fact that society is on the brink of the fourth indus-
trial revolution. Russia is not an exception; it has made in-
novation a top priority for the development and economic
growth. It needs to be emphasized that the Russian inno-
vation system is vertical, which means that the micro level
of innovational
development, or the involvement of innova-
tions in the business process, depends directly on the macro
level, or the regulation of innovations. As a result, the macro
level will be the cornerstone of this essay. This topic is ex-
tremely actual and practical, especially in current crisis.
The path from invention to innovation lies within the
system of public and political institutions, which have not
encouraged ideas being brought to life over in the past. De-
spite Russian scientists not being innovatively behind their
European counterparts, even being
first to make some dis-
coveries, they have found themselves in difficulties when at-
tempting to move beyond the actual product to the mass
market. The foreign scientist Loren Graham says that
Russian inventors often emigrated from Russia, that they
didn»t find recognition in their homeland, and that they
often died in poverty [1]. Today the Russian government is
full of determination to improve this situation, but internal
arguments have appeared regarding the best way to trans-
form Russian innovation.
In 2011, the Russian government made the first serious
step and formed a ten-year strategy concerning Innovative
Development [2], including forming the basic elements
of the innovative ecosystem.
Institutions of development
and innovative infrastructure have been created; such ex-
amples include the Russian Venture Company (RVK), and
Skolkovo Innovation Centre, founded in 2010. A state-
owned enterprise entitled the Development of Industry
Fund and the Agency of Strategic Initiatives have also been
established. As a result, today Russian venture market has
not only been created but has also exceeded the European
venture market in terms of volume, being worth over 1 bil-
lion dollars [3]. In 2015, a national technology initiative
was announced [4], which includes changes in regula-
tory regulations, in fiscal and professional policy, and in the
ways in which innovative companies work and are rewarded.
The fact that Russia has developed its innovative institu-
tions considerably can also be proved by international rat-
ings. For instance, on
the Global Innovation Index
1
(GII),
Russia has risen 16 places since 2010 [5], currently ranking
48th out of 143. In GII terms, Russia has the strongest po-
sition in Human Capital and Research, and is ranked 26
th
.
It also needs to be mentioned that Russia has dramati-
cally improved its knowledge and technology outputs, and
the number of both patent requests for inventions, and the
number of scientific publications have increased. How-
ever, there are some problems, which can often be found
in Russia if we look at market sophistication, such as credit,
investment and competition. According to the Bloomberg
Innovation Index
2
(BII), Russia is in 14
th
place [6]. China
is the only county, which exceeds Russia among BRICS,
taking 29th
place in GII, although in BII, Russia overtakes
China, mainly because of the level of education. As a result,
GII seems to be more objective.
If we look at statistics alone, Russian innovations have
become reality, a fact which is difficult to deny, but on the
other hand, if we look at labor index and productivity, we
can see that there are problems in Russia»s innovation
sphere. For example, labor productivity in Russia is ap-
proximately three times lower than that in the USA sug-
gesting that somewhere along
the line Russian innovation
isn»t working [7]. It means that it is not time for innova-
tion, but for modernization, which means concentrating on
buying innovations instead of creating them. On the other
hand, judging technological lag solely by using an average
of labor productivity among many different companies is
incorrect. For example, when a company thinks about in-
novative improvements, the first thing that they should
do is to research the market and look at their competitors,
which are different depending on the type and size of com-
pany. Only after this, they look at the economy within the
country. According to research carried out by McKinsey,
the level of technological lag is completely different in dif-
1
Appendix 1.
2
Appendix 2.