Cooperation and rivalry of old and new major powers in innovation

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 2000s against the background of progressive economic rise of emerging powers, including Russia, which falls under this category in the economic sense, the issue of balance of potential between the traditional leaders of development and the emerging centers of power has become very popular in academic and political circles. Having highlighted the contrast of the economic situations in these countries and the difference of their reactions to its consequences the 2008 global economic crisis contributed to further politicization of the matter. Given the complexity of the development phenomenon and its multidimensional impact on the overall potential of countries, all issues related to it, including these concerning innovations, inevitably acquire sensibility. Innovation development represents one of the key drivers of the economic growth as well as of, but does not equal it. Nevertheless, innovation development plays an important and even critical role in the increase of the country's overall power and thus merits special consideration. The analysis of the interaction betw een the developed and the emerging powers during innovation processes reveals new interesting aspects of their current state in the sphere of the innovation development and its possible changes in the future. At present, these are global value chains that produce a considerable part of scientific and technological progress and innovations. They entangle national innovation systems of both industrialized and developing countries into a dense network of multidirectional and asymmetric linkages, which create the basis for both cooperation and competition among traditional and rising powers as well as among actors of their national innovation systems in the field of high-technologies. Meanwhile, the boundaries between competition and collaboration are far from being apparent, as the configuration of different types of interaction is determined not only and not so much by market relations and relevant innovation development strategies as by the political aspirations of countries. This factor sets new tasks before governments seeking to build up their innovation potential. Besides, in the context of the aggravation of relations with the West and restrictions imposed on transfer of needed technologies it is a matter of topical interest for Russia.