HSE ISSEK analysts studied the involvement of high-tech enterprises in our country in research and development, as well as the extent to which success in introducing innovations depends on cooperation between business and scientists
The text was provided to Trends by the ISSEK.HSE.RU portal.
The analysis was based on the results of a survey of 529 enterprises in high-tech and medium-tech industries of a high level of manufacturing industry (according to the Eurostat / OECD classification) as part of the HSE regular Monitoring of Innovative Behavior of Enterprises in 2020. The sample is representative by type of economic activity. The results are weighted to reflect the real structure of the Russian economy.
Research and development is an important part of the business of companies in high-tech and mid-tech high-level manufacturing industries. In 2018–2020, they were performed by 92,3% of innovatively active enterprises. For such companies, the development of corporate science is directly related to the success of implementing innovative potential: the ability to produce new products for the market and integrate into global value chains correlates with the presence of research and development costs.
High-tech industrial enterprises mainly rely on their own competencies in research and development, less often attract third-party organizations. Full outsourcing of research and development is not common: in 2018-2020, less than 6% of innovatively active enterprises operating only in the Russian market, and less than 1,5% of exporting enterprises used it. As the level of integration with the global market grows, companies combine their own research and development with the involvement of third-party organizations.
The research divisions of companies, depending on the ambition of their goals, solve a wide range of tasks – from helping to modernize products and production processes to exploratory research. For enterprises aimed at accumulating competitiveness (creating new innovations for the enterprise, but not for the market), the main goal of research and development is the modernization of existing production processes and technologies. For companies producing new products for the market, the tasks of developing fundamentally new production technologies are more typical. At the same time, almost a third of them carry out breakthrough and exploratory research and development.
It is noteworthy that Russian corporate science relies on the organizational practices of informal network interactions that are characteristic of the culture of open innovation. One of the main channels for obtaining information in the development of innovations at Russian industrial enterprises of high-tech industries are professional events and scientific and technical literature (used by about 60% of companies). Almost half use information from professional and industry organizations (49,9%) and monitor internet platforms and social media (42,6%).
Against the background of a fairly active use of various external sources of information for innovation, the scale of formal (documented) scientific and industrial cooperation is limited. In 2018-2020, less than half (41,7%) of innovatively active enterprises in high-tech industries of the Russian industry participated in joint research and development projects with the involvement of universities or scientific organizations.
An important condition for successful scientific and industrial cooperation is that companies have their own competencies in research and development. Thus, for enterprises that implement research and development on their own, the intensity of interaction with Russian scientific organizations and universities is on average 10 percentage points higher (30,7% and 26,9%, respectively).
Monitoring data show that in order to advance in competitive markets, enterprises of high-tech industries rely on research and development, develop their own scientific potential and seek to interact with scientific organizations and universities of the country. The development of corporate science in our country is directly related to the strategic priorities of companies’ business models. Thus, the most important drivers for the development of domestic applied research and development are the tasks of entering the markets of foreign countries and advancing in global value chains.