State regulation of innovation: essence, methods, goals

The effectiveness of the national economy in modern Russia largely depends not only on natural and labor reserves, but also on the country's scientific and technical potential. Due to the transition of the economy to a new qualitative level, the importance of innovative technologies, the development of high technology production has increased, which is the most important aspect of the state’s recovery from the economic crisis and the creation of favorable conditions for the growth of all significant indicators.

Innovative activity is the most important moment of the life of society, which includes many significant factors ensuring the normal functioning of the state and the life of citizens, namely, socio-political, economic, social and others. A narrower definition (in terms of specific terminology) of this kind of field of activity implies ensuring the latest level of interaction of production aspects through the use of new knowledge and scientific and technological developments. No wonder that she was assigned a serious role in the functioning of the country as a whole, and therefore the need for control and competent management of its resources is well-founded. In view of this, the question arises of the paramount importance of the methods of state regulation of innovative activity in Russia.

Essence

The innovative sphere of functioning of the country itself provides for the creation and dissemination of various types of know-how in the field of production and industry, which can become the most important link between the production and scientific fields. Due to this, in turn, the technical and economic social needs of citizens will be realized. But if you do not ensure the correct implementation of the goals and objectives of state regulation of innovation in the Russian Federation, it is hardly possible to talk about any progress in this area of ​​functioning. After all, such an industry needs control, financing, support, promotion, provision of resources and much more - all this process can be provided at the proper level exclusively by the state in the person of the government.

What is the essence of intervention in the development of scientific and technical progress of the regulatory body? Support and state regulation of innovation in Russia is carried out at two levels: federal (state) and local (regional). The first level of regulation of scientific and technological development is manifested in the creation of a favorable innovative climate in order to materialize the country's priorities and introduce various types of know-how into the main existing sectors. The second level provides for the maintenance of the main idea within the framework of local self-government. In aggregate, the government’s policy is mainly aimed at effectively resolving sectoral and cross-sectoral problems that require mandatory solutions in terms of subsidies, the infusion of resources and the ability to change the technological base of the country as a whole.

The government coordinates the activities of ministries and departments in the field of the latest developments, thus ensuring a coherent and coordinated workable program of federal bodies represented by the executive branch. The objects of support and investment are involved in the work, such as the Russian Academy of Sciences, industry academies of sciences in the formation and implementation of state policy in the field of innovation, regional and local budget institutions, as well as organizations for the creation and development of the latest products and technological improvements.

Goals

The role and essence of state regulation of innovation, the scientific validity of the need to invest and maintain this process, as well as the final result, which the whole collegium of the country's research fund seeks, are all closely intertwined with the main goals of government intervention in existing developments. This is due to the fact that the progressing technical potential is interesting to the state, since it is able to take the country to a new level and provide modernized equipment and improved production equipment with the new status of a highly developed power with an appropriate level of economy. However, in order for this industry to develop and increase the fruits of its activities, it needs to not only be regularly financed, but also competently carry out the control and regulatory function. Achieving goals is the state’s main issue in this regard. But what are they - the goals of state regulation of innovation in the Russian Federation? Here are some of them:

• Development of ways of rational distribution and effective use of scientific and technical potential.
• Formation of an effective structure for the development of the STP apparatus.
• Stimulating an increase in the scientific contribution to the country's economy by creating elements of production and industrial know-how.
• Promoting the close relationship of the country's scientific and technical progress with the implementation of the most important social tasks.
• Structural transformations in the sphere of material and technical production, as well as increasing the level of its competitiveness and effectiveness.
• Development of a strategy to strengthen the country's defense capability, providing for the creation of top-level protection based on specific developments.
• Monitoring compliance with the safety of society and the state as a whole.

Tasks

It is worth noting that the sphere of innovation from the scientific and production industry is distinguished by the presence of a specific marketing function, financing methods, legal regulation, lending and, most importantly, a motivation system for creating innovative projects. After all, it is pointless to deny the main aspects of this development sector: innovations can significantly improve working conditions, increase the content of work and education, ensure development in the field of environmental protection, defense, pharmaceuticals, increase the overall level of social viability, while preserving life expectancy longer, the level of nutrition and medicine is better, the choice of variations to satisfy spiritual and moral needs is many times wider. However, this requires that the tasks set before innovators in the person of scientists and researchers bear fruit, satisfy the requirements of the state and the desires of society. What are these tasks in the mechanism of state regulation of innovation in the Russian Federation? Here are some:

• Information - the fundamental task of the state is to notify the current government of those processes that occur in the field of scientific and technological development both within the country and abroad.
• Strategic - involves the development of proposals for work based on the formation of the most priority areas in the implementation of innovative potential.
• Analytical - involves monitoring available alternative resources and opportunities for submitting new projects for approval.
• Regulatory - predetermines the examination of incoming legal acts relating to scientific and technical issues.
• Foreign Economic - aims to prepare proposals for the conclusion of interstate treaties and agreements on scientific and technological progress.
• Documentary - provides for the argumentative background of the developments, projects, ideas produced in the field of innovation, requiring official permission.

This applies to the federal level. At the local state, it carries out its monitoring and regulatory activities in the person of regional ministries and is aimed at:

• organization of innovative forecasting;
• selection and assessment of priority aspects of the development of science, education, technology;
• development and application of organizational and economic mechanisms for the implementation of predicted goals;
• creation of state programs and projects in the field of scientific and technological progress;
• development of a methodological guide with the training of personnel for regional technical programs;
• financing of civil NRNKR, which are of national importance;
• creating an enabling environment for the implementation of scientific and innovative activities;
• stimulation of organizational structures;
• organization of conditions to support the accelerated development of scientific basic research;
• ensuring international relations in terms of the development of education, technology, science, etc.

Principles

In addition to the goals and objectives, the legal and state regulation of innovation in the field of scientific and technological development and the creation of projects that have truly high value for the country as a whole, works on the basis of firmly established principles. The main ones include:

• focus on domestic scientific potential;
• creative freedom in scientific research;
• sequence of democratization of the scientific sphere;
• publicity and openness in the formation and direct implementation of research policy;
• stimulation of basic research;
• healthy competition and entrepreneurship in science and technology;
• maintaining and stimulating innovation;
• the integration of education and science in the development of holistic training of personnel of the required level;
• protection of intellectual property rights of scientists, researchers and scientific organizations;
• free exchange of information;
• support for small scientific and technical entrepreneurship, as well as the development of organizations of various forms of ownership in terms of innovation;
• the growth of the prestige of scientific work, the provision of decent living and working conditions for specialist scientists;
• propaganda of the achievements of modern scientific and technical progress, coverage of its significance for the future of the Russian Federation.

Regulatory tools

Unfortunately, today the development of innovative projects is carried out, first of all, in the interests of the manufacturer, and therefore it is representatives of commercial relations, and not the state, who are the main producers and consumers of innovation. In order for innovations to be applied, it is necessary to prepare an appropriate competitive market environment. In principle, the state is able to work to move innovation forward, but often this leads to some disruptions in the economy, inefficient consumption of financial resources and their spending, and sometimes even leads the society into a deadlock. Of course, the state cannot stand aloof from the process of developing the latest systems, programs and functioning objects, but it will probably be more correct if its role becomes guiding and orienting.

In view of this, a list of instruments is provided at the federal and local levels, through which the government influences the course of the technical process. These tools to maintain state regulation of innovation in the scientific and commercial sphere include:

• socio-economic and scientific-technical forecasting of government policy in terms of finance, money circulation, prices, structural and reproductive policies;
• general economic, state administrative and market leverage;
• regional and federal programs, optimization models and balances of economic processes;
• government orders and modern contractual contract systems;
• mechanisms of indicative relationships and regulators of the coexistence of state and commercial organizations;
• integration of regulators and structures.

State Functions

How is state regulation of innovation activities carried out? The main directions of the government’s influence on the implementation of scientific and technological developments and the increase in their level in the country undergo some problems in terms of their effectiveness. However, one cannot fail to note a number of objective premises that allow us to talk about the existence of positive dynamics in the formation of the research system. And while the level of return at this stage of the development of the NIS in the Russian Federation is still weak, attempts to increase the degree of effectiveness of the funding invested in its work are reflected through the functions performed by the state:

• development of methods for accumulating funds for innovative projects and scientific research;
• coordination of the innovation sphere of activity;
• stimulation of know-how development and ensuring a competitive environment for them;
• introduction of a system of insurance of innovative risks and sanctions for the production of obsolete products;
• providing a legal basis for scientific and technological processes, in particular the creation of a system for protecting the copyright of innovators, protecting their intellectual property;
• the creation of a personnel apparatus in the current environment;
• preparing appropriate infrastructure;
• constitutional support of the processes of creating innovative projects in the public sector;
• the mandatory presence of the environmental and social component in the direction of innovation;
• raising the status of public innovation;
• universal regulation and control of innovation processes;
• interaction with foreign representatives of NIS, regulation of international aspects.

Forms of state support

And if theoretically the government promises powerful support of the state in the person of ministries and local authorities in terms of promoting domestic innovations, then citizens would like to observe more actions not in words but in practice. Clearly prove the intervention and the provision of feasible assistance to the state in the development of the research system can be the forms of state support that are now introduced into the innovation sphere. They look as follows:

• direct financing flows - an article on ensuring this activity is specified in a separate item in the state budget;
• interest-free bank loans - city and local government departments provide individual inventors and small enterprises with the introduction of know-how in the production of feasible financial assistance as favorable conditions for financing and the provision of benefits;
• provision of venture capital funds - a kind of subsidization of entrepreneurs engaged in innovation;
• fee reduction - the state reduces the amount of mandatory payments for those involved in the field of NIS;
• deferred repayment of state payments - small implementers of resource-saving inventions are allowed to pay the patent fee with some delay;
• the right to accelerate depreciation of equipment;
• providing a network of technoparks, technopolises and the like.

Types and methods of regulation

Even despite the existing difficulties, the innovation policy of the Russian Federation objectively has a promising trend. This is largely due to the innovative ideas and potential of the Academy of Sciences. Given properly organized measures to facilitate their implementation, it can be assumed that the federal industry may acquire an additional source for the development and increase of its competitiveness not only at the state level, but also abroad. All this seems possible in the case of correctly applied methods of state regulation of innovative activity - direct and indirect.

The first include:

• financing procedures for a number of projects that are of a scientific and technical nature;
• a list of government orders for certain development products;
• state assistance as a guarantor in case of risk in the implementation of projects;
• organization of venture company activities;
• preparation of events and contests (peculiar tenders) in which winners represented by innovative companies can receive decent rewards as decent financing;
• consolidation in the ownership of the state of a certain part of the property of the company (namely, shares), including the right to possess this property.

The second ones include:

• provision of tax benefits;
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• Training and retraining of full-time staff corresponding to the positions held in the research college.
• The provision of education on the basis of funds supporting innovative activities, namely, technical development, industrial innovations, assistance to small businesses, etc.
• Ensuring control over the expenditure of funds for their intended purpose in terms of the depreciation fund to provide funding for all kinds of activities directly related to R&D. The state is ready to support experimental work, the development of innovations, patenting of innovative solutions, the acquisition and development of domestic and foreign patent and non-patent licensing.
• Development and promotion of proposals related to changes in tax regulations in terms of increasing innovation activity.

Legal regulation

Like any state activity, support for scientific and technological developments and projects of an innovative nature is regulated at the legislative level by relevant legal norms. This is the exclusive prerogative of the government: it predetermines the need for legislative consolidation of the status of innovative scientific activity, the responsibility and rights of researchers and innovators, as well as a mechanism for developing and further applying the obtained innovation products. One of the key roles in this aspect is played by the RF Law on Science and the State. NT-policy, dated 23.08.1996. The legal regulation that the state implements through this law includes the following significant points:

• Establishment of a strategy, principles and order in the formation of public policy regarding scientific and technical progress.
• Determination of the place of scientific activity in the country, society, economy, as well as the designation of the legal status of a researcher.
• The consolidation of the types of scientific enterprises and organizations, the sources of their financing, the principles of control of scientific activity, the forms of influence of authorities on the innovation process within the federal and regional levels.
• Reflection of the legal foundations of regulation of domestic and international scientific and technical cooperation.

Foreign experience

State regulation of innovation in the United States, as in many other developed countries, is somewhat different from the Russian one. The US government pays a lot of attention to aspects of forecasting, standardization, state expertise, optimization of management decisions, and statistics on innovative products. Non-departmental expertise of projects is widely used here in the formation and distribution of the budget, and this process is regularly improved. For more than thirty years, the staff of designers, technologists, economists, investors, and managers has been using the most complicated national standards in terms of the functional and cost analysis of various objects and for about ten years they have been using the system of standards in terms of product quality management based on ISBO 9000 series.

In Japan, a key role in the strategy of industrial potential and the development of various innovative ideas is assigned to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Industry. Here, the control of scientific and technical progress is carried out by the Office of Science and Technology, and the emphasis in implementation is placed on the largest corporations.

In Belarus, scientific and technological developments occupy a significant place in the development of the economy. Support and state regulation of innovation in the Republic of Belarus are aimed at stabilizing and strengthening the Belarusian Republican Fund for Fundamental Research, the Belarusian Innovation Fund, the Informatization Fund of the Republic of Belarus and industry funds. But, as in many other states, the problems of the practical application of innovations remain here. Despite government support and the provision of bank loans, the creation of venture capital funds, fee reduction, the innovation sector requires refinement and improvement. This remark is also applicable to the state policy of the Russian Federation in this part of development.