World Bank experts to develop new strategy of innovative development for Tomsk Region

A team of World Bank experts is working in Tomsk Region on a strategy of innovative development for the region. The team includes foreign and Russian experts in innovations experienced in the development of strategies and programs for the support of innovations across the globe.

In 2002, Tomsk Region was one of the first Russian regions to adopt and start implementing a regional innovation strategy. The strategy included five priority areas such as encouraging the existing regional companies to use innovations, facilitating setting up of small innovative firms, attracting foreign investments in the high technology sector, creating an efficient infrastructure for the support of innovations, and increasing the innovation culture in the region.

The strategy resulted in a regional system to support innovation which had its regulatory framework, organizational and financial infrastructure to support innovation projects and enterprises (technical innovation zone, business incubators, technology transfer centers, commercialization offices, and a venture fund), and a human resource development system. That strategy was implemented between 2002 and 2010 and over that period funding of the research and educational complex of Tomsk Region grew 6 times (to 21.5bn rubles), the output of high technology products grew 3.5 times (to 29.8bn rubles) and the output of innovative products grew 15 times (to 10.7bn rubles).

Given the dramatic changes in the regulatory framework, development of a system to support innovation in Russia, and recent economic and technological trends in the global and Russian markets, there is a need for a new innovative development strategy for the region, the experts say. In October 2011, the World Bank started working on a new innovative development strategy for Tomsk Region until 2025 by request of the regional administration. The World Bank team of experts evaluated the overall effectiveness of the regional innovation system of Tomsk Region and its global competitiveness in particular.

Currently, the experts are working in Tomsk. They are discussing the results of the analysis with the universities, research institutes, industrial enterprises, innovative firms, and innovation infrastructure organizations. In the end, the experts will come up with a new concept of the innovative development strategy for Tomsk Region focused on areas which will increase the competitiveness of the region in Russia and in the world, accelerate its economic growth, and improve the quality of life in the region.

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• January
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