Strategic priorities for the development of middle regions in Russia

Relevance. The key factor in the development of any region is its geographical position in the socio-economic and geopolitical space of the country. In this respect, middle regions are of particular interest. Unfortunately, their unique qualities remain largely underexplored in research literature, which is the gap this article seeks to address.Research objective. The purpose of the study is to provide a definition of the concept ‘middle region’, describe its key characteristics and align them with the strategic priorities in the development of such regions.Data and methods. The research methodology centres around the notion of cumulative effect of the middle region and the tools for its assessment. This effect is associated with enhanced socio-economic efficiency of a territorial capital resulting from the advantages of its middle position. Among other things, this effect manifests itself through higher economic returns on investment. The empirical part of the study relies on the data on 36 Russian middle regions, their missions and priorities of strategic development.Results. The article summarizes the Russian and international theoretical approaches to the definition of the middle regions, their place and role in the territorial structure of a country and its socio-economic development. It is shown that most authors assign middle regions the role of the country’s epicenter, highlighting their key role in economy, culture, politics and other spheres of life. The approach proposed in this study focuses on middle regions’ position in space, on the one hand, and, on the other, sees them as systems of interactions in the socio-economic space. Based on this understanding of the middle region, several groups of Russian middle regions are identified: integrators, sustainable middle regions and developing middle regions.Conclusions. The mission of middle regions is one of the fundamental concepts of strategic management, comprising a hierarchy of goals. It is shown that although the mission of middle regions should be to become integrators of the country’s socio-economic space through the network of inter-territorial and global interactions, not all Russian middle regions are ready to pursue this ambitious goal and prefer to focus on addressing internal goals of their own

Digital platforms for regional economic research: a review and methodology proposal

Relevance. This article addresses the need for a comprehensive approach to the analysis of socio-economic data on territorial units. The existing statistical observation system provides a vast amount of data on the socio-economic development of countries, macro-regions, sub-regions, and municipalities. Despite the wealth of data available, research efforts often remain narrowly focused on specific scientific tasks. In the field of regional economy, many research methods have been developed, but there are almost no approaches to the combined use of these methods. Digital research platforms can solve these problems by providing a mechanism for complex analysis of data.Research objective. This study aims is to examine the essence of platformization in scientific research and to present a detailed overview of the functionality of existing digital research platforms on regional and spatial development to substantiate the methodology of distributed regional research. The authors examine and systematize the features of 40 digital platforms worldwide that are related to regional research, using methods such as comparative analysis, extended case method, and cross-case analysis.Data and methods. The authors examine and systematize the features of 40 digital platforms worldwide that are related to regional research by using methods such as comparative analysis, extended case method, and cross-case analysis.Results. The proposed methodology includes a system of criteria and a typology that includes five main types of platforms for regional research: information and communication platforms, distributed work and data storage platforms, service platforms, computing platforms, and transaction platforms. These types are described and their advantages and disadvantages are highlighted.Conclusions. Digital platforms should become the key form of organizing scientific research in the field of regional economics, as they allow for a comprehensive analysis of socio-economic data and scenario experiments on the "digital twins" of regions. The study proposes a general methodology for conducting distributed regional studies. This methodology provided a foundation for RegScienceGRID platform. Overall, this study highlights the potential of digital research platforms in regional studies and provides a useful methodology for evaluating and utilizing these platforms

A methodological approach to forecasting spatial distribution of workplaces in an industrial metropolis

Many world cities retain their unique industrial status. Such a feature of the economy of an industrial metropolis imposes additional requirements on the development of the forecast of spatial distribution of workplaces. The article highlights the contradictions of the long-term development of an industrial megalopolis, which become scenic forks, when forecasted. These include optimization of the industrial and trade-service sectors of the economy, the ratio of inertial and innovative development vectors, variability of migration flows and the choice of the agglomeration model type. The article is devoted to the problem of forecasting the development of a large metropolis, where the industrial sector plays a significant role in the economy. At the methodological level, the article justifies principles of spatial development of an industrial metropolis. The article describes forecasting tools for spatial location of workplaces, based on a combination of several models. The study was performed through the example of Ekaterinburg – the industrial capital of Russia; the metropolis scenarios were justified until 2035; the forecast of spatial distribution was calculated through the example of the two sectors competing for investments – industrial and trade-service. The authors substantiate spatial distribution of workplaces taking into account the projected number of people employed, the number of population of working age and distinguishing features of transport behavior of citizens. The paper demonstrates that the number of large industrial enterprises in a historically industrial center and its first zone decreases, and the modern industry in the form of small and medium-sized businesses located in industrial parks commence gradually forming a circuit with nodes on transport routes towards the largest consumer territories

The development of Kondratieff’s theory of long waves: the place of the AI economy humanization in the ‘competencies-innovations-markets’ model

Abstract The motivation to conduct this study is related to the uncertainty of the impact of the AI economy on the economic cycle and the need to unlock the potential of Industry 4.0 in stabilizing the global economic system amid a series of crises. The article discusses the fundamental issues of the emergence of a new theory related to the evolution of Kondratieff waves in the context of modern drivers of long-term economic development (MANBRIC technologies), taking into account the acceleration of the development of innovations and competencies. The spiraling dynamics of the co-development of competencies and the expansion of new markets are shown, which makes it possible to transform the decline phase of the Kondratieff wave into a similar linear process of maintaining economic growth rates close to the existing ones. As a result, based on the authors’ model “competencies-innovations-markets”, it is proved that subject to humanization, the AI economy allows the reduction of the cyclical nature of the world economic system. The main idea of the article is to smooth out Kondratieff’s long waves due to the humanization of the AI economy