Preliminary expert evaluation of clusters’ projects applying for federal subsidies in 2014 is under way at the Russian Cluster Observatory’s website
The Russian Ministry of Economic Development jointly with HSE created a specialised system for preliminary external expert evaluation of clusters’ funding applications, based on the Russian Cluster Observatory’s platform. The tender organisers believe it will contribute to raising clusters’ projects’ quality.
It was announced that the government increased funding to pilot innovative territorial clusters in 2014 from 1.3 to 2.5 billion roubles, and extended the number of pilot clusters supported by federal subsidies from 14 to 25. Another innovation of the current year is introduction of preliminary expert evaluation procedure for project applications.
Preliminary expert evaluation procedure:
- Starting from September 10, representatives of relevant regional executive authorities upload pilot clusters’ applications at www.vote.cluster.hse.ru (under their user accounts), including regional programmes for development of pilot clusters and documents describing specific projects which the regional authorities want to fund with the help of federal subsidies.
- A pool of experts evaluates the uploaded applications — both in terms of the documents’ quality and completeness, and depending on how attractive and realistic the proposed projects are. The experts may attach their comments or suggestions to each document or proposed activity.
- Following the preliminary expert evaluation, the experts’ comments and suggestions regarding the draft applications will be referred to relevant regional executive authorities — to give them a chance to make necessary adjustments before submitting official applications.
- Official applications by pilot innovative clusters should be submitted in October, 2014.
The new opportunity to improve clusters’ projects following their external expert evaluation should prove to be quite useful to regions which choose to go for it — this year, the competition for federal subsidies among pilot innovative clusters is expected to be much tougher.