The State Secretary, the Deputy Minister of Economic Development of the Russian Federation Oleg Fomichev held a regular meeting of Council of the Priority Project of the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation “Development of Innovative Clusters – Leaders of Worldclass Investment Appeal”.
The Ministry received 22 applications. During selection of clusters these applications were considered by the experts and for each of them a conclusion was prepared. Besides, the applications received from clusters were defended internally.
The list of recommended the clusters to be included in the number of participants in the Project of the Ministry of Economic Development was approved at the meeting.
The participants of the meeting selected 11 clusters from 11 territorial subjects of the Russian Federation to get the assistance in use of different support aids from the Ministry, other departments and development institutions in order to ensure their advancing growth rates in achievement of world-class investment appeal, development of support mechanisms of business and inclusion in the global value chains. 10 of 11 regions are active participants of the Association of Innovative Regions of Russia.
“We perceive this priority project as a new stage of our operation which we have been carrying out for the last years, regarding the support of pilot innovative territorial clusters”, – paid attention Oleg Fomichev and specified that the Ministry will also continue to work with the clusters that participated in the competition, but are not found among winners and earlier selected pilot clusters.
“We will certainly work with the leading regions not only regarding financing, but will also manage each of them “in the manual mode”, – he continued.
“At the beginning of 2012 the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation initiated a competitive selection of projects on development of clusters in the Russia regions. In total about 100 cluster initiatives, of which 25 were selected for pilot support in the next years, participated in the competition. More than a half of them settled down in the territory of AIRR member-regions,” − said the Director of Association of Innovative Regions of Russia Ivan Fedotov. “The fact that today the majority of regions of the Association were selected by the Ministry of Economic Development to be further involved in the Priority Project on development of innovative clusters, speaks for itself. 10 of 11 participating project – AIRR regions. This result is quite natural, as for many years the advanced projects in innovations have been implemented in Russia exactly in the regions enrolled in the Association. Every 4th innovative company is operating here. 30% of all innovative products of the country, 15% of R&D costs and more than 1/4 of VRP fall to the share of AIRR member-regions”.