Home – Home – Jornals – Region: Economics and Sociology 2020 number 3

The Science national project considers cooperation in research, development, and production as one of the tools to enhance the prestige and improve the performance of science and higher education. This is the most important condition for Russia to be among the top five most powerful nations in the world. Analyzing theoretical concepts, foreign and domestic experience in creating integration structures within regional innovation systems, we find a great variety of models for cooperation between science, education, and business. The fact that the Science national project envisages setting up world-class research and educational centers (RECs) underlines the importance of their natural coexistence with other forms of scientific cooperation that have recently emerged in the Russian Academy of Sciences, elite universities, competence centers of the National Technological Initiative, etc. This study aims to identify the prerequisites and mechanisms for establishing world-class RECs in Russian regions based on their effective functioning as agents of Russia’s regional innovation systems. The article examines the concepts of creating integration structures that involve research institutions, universities, and enterprises. We find out the prerequisites for foreign and domestic triad centers (science-education-innovation), which cooperate in science, development, and production successfully in regions. Then we compare local pilot initiatives from five constituent territories of the Russian Federation (Belgorod, Kemerovo, Nizhny Novgorod, Tyumen Oblasts, and Perm Krai) that have provided programs for their RECs. Conclusions drawn from the study are as follows: The Science national project will make it possible to combine the already established cooperation forms of research and educational institutions in flagship regions with pilot regional RECs to avoid science and education assets being over-concentrated in Moscow. Regional innovation systems are open to smart specialization, lateral scientific, and interregional sci-tech cooperation, which requires granting regions full powers to improve their local scientific and higher education institutions.