Regional Economic Growth and Open Innovation Platforms: Emerging Trends and New Opportunities

Introduction

Modern Russia is in the search of the optimal strategy of the country's economic development. Determined by world commodity price trends, the inertial prosperity does not ensure national security of the country. Russia’s entering WTO and the events of Contemporary history have increased risks and ambiguity of development prospects manifold. The escalation of geopolitical tension, objectively determined by structural shifts accompanying the change of technological modes, is aggravated by low functioning efficiency of the Russian economic system.

Besides competent political solutions there is a strong need for a new economic policy aimed at consolidation of the economy, the development of which should follow, according to the majority of experts, the innovation path. The geopolitical crisis and the sanction policy towards Russia have revealed multiple implicit problems aggravated by the fall of oil prices as the main source of revenue, as well as by an extreme deployment of the import substitution and economic modernization policy. It is worth noticing that the reverse side of the said critical situation may become a powerful impulse of mobilization of hidden reserves of development and implementation of potential capacities of the Russian economic system. Consequently, the current situation should be considered as a real chance of integration into the common international trend of innovative development. The last year showed us that in order to solve the

problem of innovation system management the existing approaches, tools and mechanisms, regardless of features of the modern crisis and the economic behavior of leading actors of the economic system, are insufficient. We have to admit that antimonopoly regulations and competition have played out. There are new challenges requiring a cardinally new methodological approach to the analysis and scientific understanding of principles and mechanisms (Vasin & Gamidullaeva, 2017a).

There is a gap between applied research and the real economy in Russia. This problem hasn't yet been solved. Golichenko (2011) considers that technological supply is far away from the technological demand. To turn this situation around, firstly, it is necessary to strengthen of research and innovation potential of non-state enterprises through the transfer of a part of applied research institutes, whose activities are closer to development than to research. Secondly, it is to establish networks of technological centers for diffusion of new technologies. Thirdly, it is to create networks of “meeting places” for knowledge producers and their potential customers – manufacturers for cooperative activities.

However, innovation infrastructure that is commonly understood as a set of interrelated structures, which serve and provide the implementation of innovation activity, has a low level of interaction between participants in Russia. Hence, there needs to be a shift to the network organization of infrastructure that ensures high level of participants' cooperation. The process of developing objectives and problems, which need to be solved in the framework of such networks, should be the most transparent and interactive. It implies an open communication between representatives of the manufacturing industry, science, society, government ministries and departments. This would obviate and overcome market failures through the self-organization of science and business. Moreover, the identification of goals may be carried out using both top-down and bottom-up approaches (in the framework of the key technologies).