Foresight and STI Governance no 4, 2016
The new issue of Foresight and STI Governance presents results of Russian studies assessing import substitution prospects, the current state of the knowledge-intensive business services sector, and the impact of fixed-term employment contracts on companies’ innovation activities. International experts share methodological recommendations on increasing efficiency of European innovation policy, and designing technology development strategies.
Science management practices as a study object
On 8 December ISSEK hosted a discussion of best R&D and/or S&T management practices applied by academic organisations. Leading science, technology and education experts discussed conceptual models of R&D management, analysed various aspects of measuring academic organisations’ performance, and debated whether it would be at all possible to develop any universal success recipes.
R&D management model is changing
Discussions at the “Foresight and STI Policy” conference the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge is hosting for the sixth year in a row, highlight the changes in approaches to studying the current state and expected development trends in the S&T sphere. Major trends of Russian and international Foresight studies include deep integration of their results into science, technology and innovation (STI) policies at all levels, growing number (and complexity) of analytical techniques, and involvement of new actors.
Russia's Ranking in Global Innovation Index
Russia is 43rd in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2016, up five positions from its 2015 ranking. Just as last year, Switzerland, Sweden, U.K., U.S. and Finland remain the top-ranking countries in the GII. These are the findings from the GII 2016 report comparing the performance of national innovation systems in 128 economies.
Russian User-Innovators: What and Why
Many Russians practice user innovation by developing their own inventions for use in everyday life, recreation, sports, etc. According to a study by Fursov and Turner conducted as part of the HSE ISSEK Monitoring Survey of Innovative Behaviour of the Population, the estimated share of user-innovators in Russia may be as much as 10%, which is substantially higher than in many other countries.
Strategy-making time comes for science towns
Science towns are becoming serious players in the national strategic planning system. The federal law “On the Science Town Status” becomes valid in the next year, obliging the local authorities to design long-term socio-economic development strategies. Science towns’ mayors, members of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, and experts from the Higher School of Economics discussed practical aspects of meeting the law’s requirements at a conference hosted by HSE on 5 July.
HSE’s 'Foresight' among Top Russian Journals in Scopus' Research and Innovation Rankings
At the beginning of June, SCImago Journal and Country Rank announced its 2015 rankings of journals indexed in the international academic citation database Scopus. Foresight , a journal published by the Higher School of Economics, placed 115 in the new ranking. Less than three years ago, the journal placed into the second quartile in the Business, Management and Accounting (miscellaneous) ranking, becoming the first Russian publication to rank in this category. In addition, Foresight was among the top-ten best Russian journals in the social sciences and humanities, according to the Scopus ranking.