Scientific and Technological Development of the Russian Federation: Review of Current Status

The scientific and technological (S&T) development of the Russian federation faces many challenges related to the isolation of science as a sector of the economy such as the lack of entrepreneurial culture, market competition and private R&D investments. In terms of our analysis, which is based on comparative publication and pa-tenting data, a particularly striking feature emerging from the material is China’s rise to overtake and surpass the Russian S&T trajectory by a number of key variables in various fields, both in terms of innovation system inputs and outputs.

Despite these problems, Russia has a long history of scientific and technological excellence that continues to this day. Moreover, during the last decades Russia has reformed its S&T system by improving the quality of its scientific enterprises and higher education, by developing its legislation and technology commercialization abilities, and by focusing top-down initiatives such as science-parks and other technology platforms. Indeed, there has been no lack of policy intervention in the field of Russian STI and R&D.

However, on the basis of our analysis, it seems that Russia has been unable to ad-dress the systemic weaknesses of the National Innovation System. Instead, Russia has focused on technocratic instruments, with little attention paid to societal issues. Without the right societal conditions, such as a culture of entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems, the impact of the various policy measures will remain modest.