Regional balance of technology transfer and innovation in transitional economy: empirical evidence from Russia (journal article)

The article "Regional balance of technology transfer and innovation in transitional economy: empirical evidence from Russia"  by Dirk Meissner and Stanislav Zaichenko (HSE ISSEK) is published in the "International Journal of Transitions and Innovation Systems".

During the last decade, the role and meaning of research and technology organisations (RTOs) and their contribution to the innovation potential of countries has been questioned. In this paper, RTOs are understood as “…organisations with significant core government funding (25% or greater) which supply services to firms individually or collectively in support of scientific and technological innovation and which devote much of their capability (50% or more of their labour) to remaining integrated with the science base…” (Hales, 2001). Transitional economies like Russia face substantial challenges with national and regional innovation policies for supporting and enabling knowledge transfer. In this context, RTOs often

maintain obsolete behavioural schemes of non-market public institutions isolated from the real economic sector. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and explain some unexpected knowledge transfer phenomena crucial for efficient regional innovation policies using Russian RTOs as example.

The paper is based on a pilot statistical survey of Russian research and technology organisations (RTOs) initiated by Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK) and National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) with assistance of the Research Laboratory for Economics of Innovation of HSE, the Research Laboratory for Science and Technology Studies of HSE and the Centre for Fundamental Studies of HSE in 2010. The study was implemented in the framework of the Programme of Fundamental Studies of the Higher School of Economics in 2011.