Innovation Clusters and Prospects for Environmental Management in Russia

Abstract

We examine the approach to studying and forecasting promising markets of rational nature management. The relationships between higher educational institutions—centers of scientific research competences with other organizations are determined. It is found that the flow of knowledge from universities must generate stable regional networks (innovation clusters) to concentrate a significant part of markets. It is established that the most advanced innovation clusters emerged in regions with centers of potential interregional clusters in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Tomsk as well as in Perm krai and Tyumen, Belgorod and Kaliningrad oblasts. Largely on the basis of data on funding of state programs, we estimated the total potential volume of the market until 2020. For estimating the proportion of the regions in it, it is suggested that it will be higher if the organizations of relevant regional cluster show a higher publication and patent activity with a large number of interactions. Moscow will concentrate more than 20% and St. Petersburg about 10% of the market of rational environmental management. The total volume of national products and services will make up from 0.2 to 2% of the world market of the sphere under investigation by the year 2020; therefore, it is necessary to enhance the interactions of innovation organizations within the framework of cluster initiatives. But the main problem involves the absence of international cooperation. In fact, these efforts constitute one of the first attempts to study the sector associated with applied research of Earth sciences in Russia.