Innovation-technology matrices and national economic development strategies

Nowadays there is a serious escalation in the global technological competition between countries, which is unfolding amid the fourth industrial revolution. Russia, as a competitor of that race, should have its own development strategy. The article explores the problems faced by Russia when developing its effective national innovation-technology strategy. The methodological framework of the research includes the ideology of new institutional economics, the concepts of national innovation systems and public administration. The method of the study is the construction of innovation-technology matrices created for a large sample of countries on the basis of the relative productivity index and the relative R&D unit cost index. This approach allows identifying countries that follow non-traditional innovation strategies implying significant advances in R&D if compared to the manufacturing sector. The result of the study is the empirical design of innovation-technology matrices for 2000–2015. The matrices characterize the current balance of forces in the global race for innovation-technology leadership and show its dynamics over the past 15 years. The authors single out the countries with a proactive development strategy aimed at anticipating external challenges, and those implementing a reactive strategy involving a response to the challenges that have already arisen. The paper formulates recommendations that will allow Russia to make an innovation and technological breakthrough. The present research can be of interest to public authorities when forming and implementing the national innovation-technological development strategy.