INNOVATION POTENTIAL IN REGIONAL STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT: ESSENCE AND ELEMENTS

Abstract

The issues of innovation-driven development are becoming more and more common in scientific and practical domains, since innovation is a core source of economic growth and a pathway to gain competitive advantages. The above triggers the need to explore the innovation potential as the backbone of innovative activity at the national as well as at the regional levels. It is argued that innovation policy should ensure the implementation of regional strategic goals subject to available resources, whereas regional innovation potential contributes to its socioeconomic, scientific and technical growth as well as enhances product competitiveness. The purpose of this article is to provide insights into theoretical approaches and reveal the essence of the ‘regional innovation potential’ concept. The research findings have identified specific features of regional innovation potential and its key structural elements. An emphasis is put on the sources of innovative development at the regional level. The study explores the functions of regional innovation potential along with the factors affecting its growth. An algorithm for assessing the current state of regional innovation potential and making a decision as to its further strategic development has been provided. A range of research methods have been employed to attain the study objectives, in particular, the systemic method, inductive and deductive reasoning, graphic and tabular methods, etc. The developed algorithm for assessing the innovation potential has great practical implications in evaluating the regional innovation capacity. The research displayed the lack of unanimity in scholars’ approaches to interpreting regional innovation potential and its structural elements. This category is viewed as a set of resources and as the ability to utilize these resources. The elements of the regional innovation potential involve market, information, financial, investment, production, research, marketing and human resources.