The Innovative Powers of Moscow Combine into a Mega-cluster
High-tech enterprises', IT-companies, scientific, educational, and infrastructure organisations in Moscow will unite into an innovation and production cluster. The initiative by the Government of Moscow to create such a cluster was previously worked out with the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, and in mid-April it was approved by President Vladimir Putin. The Government of Moscow jointly with HSE is working on a concept of cluster development that lays down the basic principles of interaction between its potential participants. The results of the work will be presented this summer.
On May 28, the first expert discussion of the outline of tasks and design of the future cluster took place at Moscow Entrepreneurship Forum at the Manezh. The discussion was moderated by Evgeniy Kutsenko, the head of the HSE ISSEK’s Russian Cluster Observatory.
Kristina Volkonitskaya, Deputy Head of the Department of Science, Industrial Policy and Entrepreneurship of Moscow talked about how Moscow authorities see the prospects and goals of the cluster. Artem Shadrin, Director, Department of Strategic Development and Innovation, Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation and Denis Tsukanov, Deputy Head of Department of Regional Industrial Policy, Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia presented the positions of the government departments that have been implementing the innovative and industrial clusters support programs since 2012 and 2015, respectively. Representatives of development institutions, universities, scientific and infrastructure organisations of Moscow took part in the expert session. All speakers commented from a different perspective how the mega-cluster will affect the development of the city and what opportunities it will create for its participants.
In the territory of the Capital City of Moscow there are about 20 thousand high-tech companies and innovative infrastructure facilities. All of them are potential members of the emerging cluster. It may also include seven existing innovative and industrial clusters or clusters in various stages of development located in Moscow. The integration of the innovative and industrial units of the city will contribute to the establishment of new and strengthening of existing cooperation ties. Reliance on the cluster format will give a new impact to the development of research and production projects of the metropolis.
The participants of the discussion discussed about the sectoral and territorial framework of the mega-cluster; considered possible ways of its interaction with the federal agencies, development institutions and already implemented cluster initiatives. The experts confirmed the importance of further work on issues of cluster development such as technology transfer, development of cooperative projects and involvement of major companies, formation of international production linkages and promotion of cluster products in foreign markets.
News of the event on the website of the the HSE ISSEK Russian Cluster Observatory (in Russian)