Russia, Ukraine, need to be better at innovating

Russia: “a country of extremes”. Image courtesy BRUIT.

This is the headline conclusion of the BRUIT project funded by the EU to research and help develop innovation policy in Russia and Ukraine by applying the socio-economic research methodology and indicators from the European Commission’s TrendChart on Innovation.

The project, lasting 15 months, involves researchers from Britain, Luxembourg, Russia and Ukraine. It was led by the UK consultancy, Assystem, which used data for 26 socio-economic indicators, to calculate the innovation index for Russia and Ukraine and compared them to EU member states, and other countries such as Japan and the US.

“Russia is a country of extremes,” notes Natalia Ivanova from IMEMO, the Russian Academy of Sciences. “It has a very well developed system of R&D institutes covering a broad range of scientific fields; however, most Russian businesses do not invest in R&D, and have no clear innovation strategy.”

The Russian government is investing billions of roubles in areas of science and technology such as nanotechnology and space, as well as innovation support measures such as technoparks and venture capital funds. It aims to achieve several specific, innovation-related targets by 2015, including raising expenditure on R&D to 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product and increasing business expenditure on R&D.

IMEMO research indicates that government efforts should not only focus on increasing innovation activity, but also on reforming the public and private R&D sectors, and increasing the number and transparency of competitions for public research funds.

Similarly, Ukraine has a large number of research establishments, but many are in decline. Today only a quarter of all Ukrainian graduates leaving university have studied science or engineering, compared with over 60 per cent in 1990.

“The ratio of public expenditure on R&D to gross domestic product in Ukraine is less than 60 per cent of the EU25 average,” observes Igor Yegorov of STEPS, the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. “And the ratio for business R&D expenditures is even worse – just 31 per cent.”

“Clearly action needs to be taken if Ukraine is to develop a broad-based, innovation-led economy.”

The researchers recently presented their preliminary findings to Ukrainian government officials in Kiev. The Ukrainian government has drawn up several innovation policies but has had problems implementing them. For example, efforts to introduce tax incentives for technoparks by one ministry were blocked by another.

Giles Brandon, BRUIT project co-ordinator at Assystem, said the final reports would be published in the autumn. “We will be inviting government policy makers to a workshop to tackle the issues of innovation policy implementation and restructuring of R&D systems,” he said.