The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international economic organization of developed countries which was officially founded on September 30th, 1961. Today the OECD includes 34 states including both advanced and developing countries. The OECD is a platform in which different governments can work together to share experiences and seek solutions to common problems.
Today the seminar on “Regions as drivers of competitiveness” is being held within the 21st meeting of the Working Group on territorial indicators of the OECD in Paris. The main purpose of the seminar is sharing of experience in the measurement of regional development and presentation some issues in emerging-market countries and the role of regional development policies and its decision. The seminar is organized in three basic sections of the forthcoming publication “The OECD Regions in figures of 2011” that supports the mission of the OECD in the promotion of powerful, fair and net economy. Based on the all available data of the OECD and tools for measurement of regional development, the participants are suggested to discuss how to adapt these measures to the emerging markets and developing economies.
The session presents data on the innovative potential of regions in Brazil and Russia, considers the issues of performance measures and skills how it is preferable to describe the competitiveness of different regions in the emerging-market countries, how these measures differ from measures used in the OECD countries, how it is preferable to evaluate the statistics of regional innovation in developing countries and OECD countries, in what way both institutional and political factors contribute to the formation of regional innovation networks, what tools should be developed to measure the impact of these factors and others.
At this seminar Russia is represented by the Divisional Head of State Institution “Centre for Science Research and Statistics” at the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Vladimir Kiselev, Chairman of the Supervisiory Board of the Foundation for Assistance to small innovative enterprises and Executive Director of the Association of Russian Innovation Regions Ivan Bortnik and General Director of CJSC “Innovational production Technopark “Idea” Sergey Yushko. Vladimir Kiselev in his report “Innovation potential and performance of Russia’s regions” presented a comparative analysis of innovation regions of Russia and gave a general estimation of innovation potential of these regions. The results obtained make it possible to compare regions of Russia by Regional Summary Innovation Index (RSII) as well as determine four groups of regions-leaders: innovation potential, innovation climate, innovation efficiency and efficiency of innovation potential.
Based on the results of comparative analysis, the Republic of Tatarstan is in the first group of regions on the innovation efficiency and in the first group – in terms of innovation activity of regions.
Also, General Director of Technopark “Idea” takes part in this seminar as the Working Representative of the Association of Innovative Regions of Russia (AIRR). It should be reminded that the Qualification Committee of AIRR led by the Republic of Tatarstan was established within the framework of the Association. The Committee shall develop the criteria and procedure for selection of subjects of the Russian Federation which are actively contributing to the development of innovation economy.
It is assumed that 5 regions with the highest scores will be selected every two years. These regions “winners” will get access to additional funding for the innovation development. In two years these regions will not take part in the forthcoming selection.
The methods involves pre-qualification selection, the use of quantitative assessment (on the basis of indicators) and expert clarification of the quantitative assessment results which allows to consider peculiarities of indicators calculation for various type of regions, compensate for imperfect statistics as well as reduce the possibility of artificial “improvement” of indicators by regional authorities.
Participation of Russia in such events makes it more open to the world community and contributes to the development of closer contacts with the most developed countries in the world and its further integration into the global community. Initiative of the Republic of Tatarstan including the establishment of the Qualification Committee of AIRR in the analysis of innovation infrastructure in the regions promotes more rapid integration of Russia into the global community.
Currently Russia is on its way to become the member of the OECD. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) held seven economical reviews in Russia including policies review in such critical fields as education, agriculture, investment, environment, innovation, social policy, science and technology, corporate management and regulatory reform.
The OECD has been cooperated with Russia since 1992, in 1996 Russia made an official request for accession to the OECD. In 1997 the OECD members-countries formally recognized that the accession of the Russian Federation as a full member of the OECD was a final goal of their cooperation. On November 30, 2007 The OECD Council approved the plan of Russia’s accession to the OECD so-called “road map”. The “road map” is focused on the implementation of the OECD Council decisions and defines the procedure allowing for members-countries to evaluate readiness and ability of the Russian Federation to fulfill obligations imposed by the Membership in the Organization. Ultimately the “road map” is designed to facilitate the adoption by the Council by the completion of the negotiation process in terms of conditions of Russia’s accession to the OECD Convention, which it can suggest to the Russian Federation.