Scientific and Technological Priorities in the Federal Spatial Development Policy in Russia

Abstract

The need to activate and increase the effectiveness of science and technology policy in the modern conditions of the development of the Russian economy requires, among other things, the definition of spatial priorities of such a policy. It is proposed to assess the spatial component in the federal science and technology policy according to its compliance with such requirements as the widest possible coverage of territories with potential for scientific and technological development by federal support, the correctness of the assessment of such potential, the presence of a well-built system of support tools and compliance of higher education with the needs of scientific and technological development. It is shown that there are unresolved problems in each of these areas, including those related to the shortcomings of official statistics (there is no information on the actual number of researchers in the equivalent of full employment, on the structure of university students), with the disunity of measures to support scientific and technological development of territories (technological special economic zones, science cities, techno-parks in the field of high technologies, state scientific, innovative scientific-technological and scientific-educational centers), in some cases, insufficient elaboration of such measures. As a result, the geography of federal support for scientific and technological development develops spontaneously, spatial priorities of such a policy are not defined, the location of federal and national research universities does not always correspond to the location of research centers. The article suggests ways to solve these problems, including the development of a spatial strategy for scientific and technological development and embedding it into a new strategy for the spatial development of the country.