Assessment of innovative development of regions of the arctic zone of the Russian Federation

Innovative development is regarded by the authors as an invariant scenario for the sustainable development of the Arctic regions. The level of innovative development is determined on the basis of rating. Taking into account the existing approaches, the original method of rating the innovative development of the Arctic regions based on the model of the Triple Helix is proposed. The analysis of the results of innovative development of the Arctic regions in the five years since the adoption of the strategy of innovative development of Russia has been carried out. The proposed method allows to quickly and accurately evaluate the results of innovative development of a group of regions for a preset interval of time. An analytical review of the methods of rating assessments of the innovative development of the Arctic regions was conducted. The study showed that, despite the importance of the issues related to assessing the effectiveness of innovative systems and the results of innovative development, the scientific foundations of the theory of assessment, methods and tools for developing indicators and criteria for assessing effectiveness for specific territories have not been fully developed. It was revealed that the existing assessment methodology does not sufficiently take into account the specific features of the Arctic regions and rarely takes into account the immediate activity of authorities and business. The paper suggests a new methodological approach aimed at increasing the objectivity of rating, leveling the shortcomings of statistical methods that increase the role of actual data reflecting the condition and potential of the regions. On the basis of the formulated approach, we have produced a comprehensive assessment of rating the innovative development of Russian regions. The comparison of the results of complex estimation of innovative development with other ratings confirmed the assumption about the relative objectivity of the results obtained by the existing techniques. The results of the study justify the need for a spatial The paper proposes  methods of determining the level and dynamics of innovative development making up for the lack of objective scientific data on the actual innovative development of the Arctic regions and can be useful to public authorities in the formation of innovation policy.