Russian policies in support of innovation: elusive quest for efficiency

Focused on the efficiency of the Russian innovation-fostering policy, the research is based on an empirical analysis of how policy instruments impact firms’ behavior. The data is obtained from two surveys of more than 600 Russian industrial companies in 2011-2012. The analysis shows that tax incentives are more conducive to innovations with a longer payback period, whereas public funding is more likely to facilitate launching new innovative projects. At the same time, both kinds of innovation support tools are affected by crowding out private funds by public ones. Besides, innovation policy design and administration are not friendly to young companies

The Nature of Innovation Channels at the Micro-Level: Evidence from Russian Manufacturing Firms

The main purpose of the paper is to analyze different channels for innovations. We analyze the influence of various incentives for innovation in Russian companies taking into account the organization of industries — vertical or horizontal orientation, peculiarities of corporate demography, role and motives of different owners (including government and foreign investors), demand trends, customers‘ profile, nature and intensity of competition in relevant markets. An empirical base for our study is provided by two surveys of Russian industrial companies conducted in 2011 and 2012. One of our hypotheses: in vertically organized sectors that define innovation activeness in the economy (for example, mechanical engineering), the innovative development of the head producers is constrained by the risk of technological gap with its partners in the supply chain. We find out that innovations in Russian industry spread in accordance with two main models: vertical through corporate connections, and horizontal, based on the example of foreign companies in the atmosphere of developed competition

Cooperation between Russian research organizations and industrial companies: factors and problems

The study is focused on the cooperation of Russian companies with research organizations in implementing R&D projects during technological innovation. Taking into account behavioral changes, authors carry out a micro-level analysis based on empirical data of executive survey of over 600 Russian industrial firms (2011—2012) and about 350 research organizations and universities (2012). The authors emphasize the key factors of firms’ demand for outsourcing R&D reveal the main barriers to the development of university-industry cooperation and their particularities for different cooperation actors. The analysis shows that there is a positive relation between the size of a company and R&D outsourcing. As for the factor of age, the highest cooperation activity of Russian firms is observed among enterprises founded over 20 years ago. As far as concernes cooperation activity of research organizations, large ones are significantly more likely to cooperate with business. A common prerequisite for research organizations' R&D cooperation with business is sufficient academic ranking. Business and science evaluate differently various obstacles to effective cooperation. For firms, the main problems are the inflated costs of national R&Ds, insufficient research organizations’ orientation at company needs, and low quality of developments. As for representatives of research organizations, they mention as barriers primarily the lack of companies' receptivity to innovation and inadequate information about promising developments. Businesses are more optimistic about cooperation with science if they already have a relevant experience of interaction. In the case of research organizations we observe a different pattern: most problems seem more significant to organizations conducting R&D in business interests