Encyclopedia of Technology and Innovation Management

Chapter 46. The National Innovation System of the Russian Federation

Julian Cooper

University of Birmingham, U.K.

Introduction

As of 2008, it is debatable whether Russia possesses a national innovation system (NIS) in the normally understood sense of a coherent set of inter-related institutions promoting innovation as a natural outcome of their day-to-day functioning. Institutions and practices in the sphere of research and development still retain many features of the former Soviet system and it is not possible to underst and the present-day situation without first exploring the Soviet legacy and the impact on the R&D system of the turbulent transition to a market economy during the 1990s.^[135]

Features of the Soviet R&D system included the organizational separation of research from production, the dominant role not only in basic research but also in much applied work of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences, which played a central role in the overall science policy of the country and occupied a position of prestige in society, and The relatively modest roleinR&D of the higher educational sector (Zaleski et al., 1969). In the business sector, all enterprises were state-owned and most R&D was undertaken by specialized applied research institutes, generally organizationally separate from enterprises which undertook little research. The Soviet R&D system was heavily militarized and successive attempts to transfer technology from the military sector to the civilian economy met with little success. ...