The second round of providing support to innovative territorial clusters

Russian Cluster Observatory’s experts Yevgeny Kutsenko and Sergei Artemov commented on major new features of the 2014 budget policy regarding providing support to innovative territorial clusters, announced on 9 June at the meeting held at the RF Ministry of Economic Development. From this year onwards, federal subsidies increase to 2.5 billion roubles, and all 25 pilot clusters are now eligible to this money.

New rules for clusters

1. The overall funding from the federal budget was increased, and regional and federal budgets’ shares in jointly funded projects were changed. If last year clusters received from the federal budget 1.3 billion roubles, this year this amount will grow to 2.5 billion roubles. In 2013 the share of the funds provided by the region where the pilot innovative territorial cluster was located was between 30% and 70%, depending on the availability of money; this year it will be in effect halved, to between 5% and 30%. On the one hand, this new rule will allow to save regional budgets’ funds and increase regional authorities’ motivation to support pilot innovative territorial clusters on their territory. On the other hand, the total amount of subsidies provided to territorial clusters may decrease due to reduced share of the regions.
2. As of this year, all pilot innovative clusters (there are 25 of them altogether) are eligible to receive federal subsidies. At the same time clusters of the first group (14 clusters) would have a priority: they may receive up to ¾ of the total federal funding. However, the final allocation will depend on the quality of projects and the amount of funds provided by regional authorities.