HSE Presents 6th Russian Regional Innovation Development Ranking

Moscow, Tatarstan and St. Petersburg are the leaders of the new ranking. Based on 53 indicators, the ranking can be used by regional governments to develop and optimize their innovation policy. The ranking presentation was held on October 31 at a press conference hosted by the TASS news agency.

Why We Need This Ranking

The Russian Regional Innovation Development Ranking has been issued by the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) since 2012. Its methodology is in line with international measurement standards in this area; additionally, the ranking’s authors stress the transparency of the methodology - the ranking includes a detailed description of all indicators and calculation algorithms, which allow readers to independently verify the obtained indices.

‘The ranking was originally planned as an expert and analytical study. But eventually its perception in the media and among officials has changed,’ says Leonid Gokhberg, ISSEK Director, First Vice Rector of the HSE.

The ranking began to be taken as a tool for assessing the activity of regional governments in the innovation sector

Many indicators in the ranking reflect trends in the country’s development articulated in the presidential decrees of May 2018. Ranking indicators (for example, on digital development, export, and quality of innovation policy) help in analysing the current situation, and in the future, the dynamics of how Russian regions are developing with regard to a number of national projects.

The Leaders

The sixth edition of the ranking comprises a system of 53 indicators for five key sub-indices: Socio-Economic Conditions for Innovation Activities Index, S&T Potential Index, Innovation Activities Index, Export Activities Index and Quality of Innovation Policy Index. Regions are ranked according to each of these sub-indices, and the final index is formed as the average of normalized values of all indicators included in the ranking.

Top 10 of the Russian Regional Innovation Development Ranking:

1. Moscow

2. Tatarstan

3. St. Petersburg

4. Tomsk region

5. Nizhny Novgorod region

6. Moscow region

7. Sverdlovsk region

8. Novosibirsk region

9. Chelyabinsk region

10. Kaluga region

The HSE ranking features individual profiles of 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation. These profiles present innovation performance in detail, allowing us to identify the features of each region’s innovation system.

While the regions that have the most impact on innovation development have retained their leading positions for several years, their profiles show that models of successful development can be quite different. Only Moscow and St. Petersburg made it to the top 10 in each of the five sub-indices.

Different Regions — Different Success Models

Regions don’t need to balance all indicators to be innovative, says Evgeniy Kutsenko, Director of the Russian Cluster Observatory.

The Tomsk region is a good example. It ranked forth according to Socio-Economic Conditions for Innovation Activities Index, but in terms of S&T Potential Index and, in particular, knowledge exports, this region is among the leaders.

‘You can win due to a specific feature — it’s important to identify this feature and invest in what will bring you success,’ says Evgeniy Kutsenko.

Our ranking is not just statistical data, but a tool for government and business

The sixth issue of the ranking also includes an experimental index that indicates how well regions are prepared for the future. It does not duplicate or replace the usual index of innovative development but rather allows us to look at the region’s innovation policy from a different angle.

The index was calculated using the iFORA (Intelligent Foresight Analytics) system, says Ilya Kuzminov, Director of the Centre for Strategic Analysis and Big Data. The system allows you to extract relevant information from millions of documents that cannot be covered by traditional statistics methods.