Flagship projects of development strategies in Russian municipalities according to materials of competition of municipal strategies 2022

In November 2022, within the framework of the 20th All-Russian Forum “Strategic Planning in Regions and Cities of Russia: Strategies of Turbulent Era”, a competition “Implemented Strategies: From Idea to Execution” was held. One of the nominations in the framework of the competition was “The Best Flagship Project.” 75 projects submitted to the Competition by 33 municipalities from 19 regions of Russia became the object of this research. Various characteristics of the participants’ flagship projects were studied and analyzed in four thematic groups: development of flagship project ideas, financing of flagship projects, the novelty of flagship projects, industry affiliation of flagship projects. Data obtained on the dominant trends in this area are as follows: 56% of the projects are new to their municipalities; 48% of the projects were offered by administrations of the municipalities or regional authorities; 37% of the projects appeared because of the development of strategic documents; 26 projects indicated the federal budget as one of the sources of funding. It was also noted that an extremely small number of projects were proposed by members of the public and only 49% of the cases under analysis indicated extra-budgetary sources of funding. During the study, two hypotheses were tested: 1) the high cost of the project requires the involvement of more types of funding sources;the high cost of the project is accompanied by long deadlines for its implementation. Based on the material of the contest participants, the first hypothesis was unconfirmed, the second was conditionally confirmed. A new definition of flagship project was proposed as a major project or a group of complementary physical or institutional transformation projects aimed at the achievement of the strategic goal of community development or solution of crucial local problems and creating potential for new significant initiatives.