Cluster Analysis of the Innovative Potential of Russian Regions

One of the main directions of economic development of the Russian Federation is the increasing of the role of innovative production and reorganization of the economic system needed to accelerate the pace of formation of the innovative economy. Despite the tasks set by the strategy of innovative development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2020, the pace of innovative development of the state economy, and accordingly regional economies, is extremely low, and the share of foreign technologies in production processes exceeds 60%. The reformation of the vision of strategic development of innovation economy in Russia is directly connected with defining the actual level of innovative development of regions and formation of mechanisms for the creation of regional and interregional scientific-technical research and innovation infrastructure, which in the long term will provide the current trends of innovative development. Today, the vast majority of regional economies have a high need for new technologies and the formation of the domestic base of scientific and technical production. The needs of the regions are determined not only by the obsolescence of production bases and technological resources, but also by the growing imbalance between the levels of development of regional economies and their isolation. One of the possible options for strategic management of innovative development is the creation the mechanisms of formation regional and interregional innovation and scientific and technical clusters, and, as a consequence, production clusters. However, in order to apply the advantages of cluster development, it is necessary to study the innovative potential of the subjects of the Russian Federation, which will ensure an effective combination of regional economies. This article presents the results of the cluster analysis of the subjects of the Russian Federation on one of the indicators of the innovative potential of the regional economy, as well as the key trends of innovative development of the subjects of the Russian Federation included in the identified clusters.