REGIONAL APPROACH TO INFRASTRUCTURE CLASSIFICATION

Abstract

The relevance of studying the issues of infrastructure classification is due to the problems of regional asymmetry of Russian regions and the need to assess their infrastructural potential, identify infrastructural facilities that meet the needs of organizations of both the region and territorial entities of different levels. In connection with the processes of changing technological structures, the intellectualization of the economy, the formation of approaches to assessing the educational and scientific and educational infrastructure of the region becomes relevant. The purpose of the article is to describe the regional approach to the classification of infrastructure, as well as to substantiate the influence of educational infrastructure on the development of the economy. The analysis of existing approaches to the definition of the concept of «infrastructure» and its classification is applied. The proposed classification is based on the idea of structuring the infrastructure in accordance with the requests of researchers of the regional economy and the needs arising at different levels of state and corporate governance. As a result of the study, a regional approach to the classification of infrastructure objects was proposed. The advantages of this approach are described. A hierarchical structuring of infrastructural potential based on the identification of different regional levels is proposed. Based on the application of the stakeholder approach with identifying the list of users of the infrastructure object, the following types of regions were identified: «regions — infrastructure donors» and «regions — infrastructure recipients». The argumentation of the thesis «educational infrastructure is an industrial infrastructure» is given, which is based on the analysis of indicators included in the methods of assessing the innovative development of the economy; analysis of the parameters used by the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia for forecasting the rate of economic growth; analysis of the potential of higher education as an important element in the development of the knowledge economy. The approaches of researchers to the concept of «scientific and educational infrastructure» are analyzed and the author’s approach to the analysis of the regional potential of scientific and educational infrastructure as an element of the industrial infrastructure of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation is proposed. The materials of the article can be used by researchers of regional development problems, heads of organizations and government bodies for structuring infrastructure facilities in the region, identifying the infrastructural potential of individual facilities, highlighting objects of scientific and educational infrastructure. Key words: regional economy, classification of infrastructure, higher education, infrastructure potential of the territory, scientific and educational infrastructure.