Assessment of the Sustainability of Regional Innovative Development in the Northwestern Federal District

The presented study examines the methods and results of the assessment of the competitive attractiveness and sustainability of regional innovative development.

Aim. The study aims to substantiate the criterion of sustainability of regional innovative development based on the positive and negative dynamics of specific and aggregate indicators and ratings of regions in terms of competitive attractiveness for innovations.

Tasks. The authors determine a system of indicators and ways to process them mathematically in order to characterize the intensity and performance of innovation activities and test them in the measurement of the sustainability of innovative development of region groups in the context of federal districts.

Methods. This study proposes mathematical tools for obtaining an aggregate score of regional innovative attractiveness and the conditions for changes in these scores over a certain period, which are regarded as unsustainability of innovative development.

Results. The authors use the proposed system to calculate the indicators of regional innovative attractiveness assessment and to identify Russian regions that were unsustainable in terms of innovation in 2013–2016. Through the example of the regions of the Northwestern Federal District, they show the causes of the unsustainability of regional development for the purposes of their potential correction through management measures. The study also shows which characteristics of the innovation process facilitated the decline in the sustainability of development of certain regions in these years.

Conclusions. The resulting list of regions that are unsustainable in terms of innovation and indicators that have reduced the level of the innovation process adequately reflects the volatility of the economic situation in 2013–2016 in Russia and across the world as well as a reduction in expenditure on scientific research and implementation of technological innovations in production.

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