Research on the innovative subsystem of the university department as a substratum of the regional innovative system

Introduction. The declared transition to the digital economy in Russia is impossible without a developed national innovative system consisting of regional innovative systems and its other substrata. The effectiveness of its functioning is determined by the level of development of each structural element of the national innovative system. The objective of the article is to analyze the innovative system of the university department, which is part of the university system as well as the regional and national innovative systems in general. Materials and Methods. Systematic, substratum and structured scientific approaches were used as well as analysis of known pieces of research on the issues under study including the previous works by the authors. Results. A hierarchy of innovative systems has been identified from the system of the department of a national research university to the national innovative system. A model of the innovative subsystem of the department with the identified innovative infrastructure has been developed. It is aimed at obtaining both specific animate innovative products: graduates of the university with competence in innovative engineering activities, and inanimate ones: tangible and intangible products. Discussion and Conclusions. The obtained results reaffirm the important role of each university department in the development of the national innovative system as a whole, and direct its work towards an innovative path of development, i. e. the creative productive intellectual and research activities, which will become the basis for the development of other innovative department systems. Further research may deal with substantiation of the expansion of the infrastructure of the innovative system of the department including through the creation of new sectors of digital designing and development of innovative products.