Russian Science in the Context of Cross-country Comparisons: Review of R&D Efficiency Statistics

The publication contains a brief overview of the R & D performance indicators in the developed countries, fastest-growing countries and Russia. This review is the first in a series of publications aiming to locate the Russian Federation on the global science map. It has the focus on patent statistics. The data of OECD, WIPO and the Federal Statistics Service of Russia for the 2003-2013 period are used as the basis for comparisons. The publication contains a detailed analysis of patent activity in high-tech areas. The United States accounts for the largest number of patents received in the field of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, telecommunications and digital technologies, while the Republic of Korea is most active in the field of information technology management, and Japan in the field of semiconductor manufacturing. At the moment, the Russian R&D sector does not look competitive compared to the leaders. The number of patents received by residents of Russia in the field of computer technology is 1.18% of the number of patents granted to residents of the United States. One of the main problems of Russian science is the low productivity of its corporate sector in comparison with the leading countries: two Chinese corporations issued 6 times more patent applications than applicants from the Russian Federation. The passive balance of payments for technology proves that technologies developed by the Russia’s civil science are not competitive on the global market.