Structural and technological shifts and modernization of the Russian economy: mid-term and long-term prospects

Abstract

Structural and technological shifts and trends of the Russia economy modernization are considered within the context and as a strategic response to the four major challenges to the national security and sustainable development. The challenges above include: demographic (population shrinking and ageing) issues, technological lagging and dependence on imports; shortage of funding and loopholes in RD organization and policy; and spatial development issues. “Mirrored” and counterbalanced to these the four major policy improvements currently implemented by the national government or nascent within research programs and projects carried out by the Russian Academy of Sciences’ institutions are introduced and contemplated. These involve (1) qualitative changes in the labor market structure and employment and imperatives of labor productivity growth as a damper to demographic burden on the economy; (2) shifts in the sectoral (industries), production and technological structure of the economy led by the accelerated development of manufacturing in late 2022-2023; (3) qualitative improvements in the RD and science policy using the valuable past domestic and modern foreign experience in organization and management of disruptive (ambitious) research projects; and (4) balanced spatial development policy and its current and future major turn to eastwards.