Innovative businesses in Russian science cities

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the innovative activity of companies located on the territory of the co-called science cities with their unique research environment. The hypothesis of the discrete role of these cities in the development and formation of the country innovation system is also checked in the study. With this purpose, the holistic analysis of the innovation activity of the science cities is made, and the comparison with the national data is drawn. To accomplish this, we use various characteristics of innovation process which show both its inputs and outputs. The level of companies' involvement in innovation process is also investigated as well as the innovation costs structure. The costs of in-house R&D, production design, personnel training and the costs of marketing research are analyzed among the others in the paper. The cost structure of technological innovation depending on the financial source is also considered. In particular, we study the ratio of firms own costs on technological innovation to budgetary financing. Their industry affiliation is considered as a crucial factor which determines firm's innovation activity. For this particular reason, we analyze the company's innovation process within different industries. The approach offered in the paper allows to estimate the effectiveness of innovation activity of science cities firms in comparison with other national companies and reveal the industries based in the science cities with the much bigger innovation results than others. The further paired analysis of the revealed industries for the studied economic areas and the country in the whole makes it rather possible to establish the factors which slow down the development of the individual branch and identify the opportunities for the breakthrough in innovation process quality.