Economic significance of heterogeneity in the innovative development of Russian regions in the context of external shocks

Modern research highlights the role of technological gaps and heterogeneity of innovative development in differentiating the level and pace of economic growth. This actualizes the analysis of trends in convergence and divergence of levels of innovative development of territories and the identification of special technological clubs within which regions develop convergently. The study systematizes theoretical and empirical approaches to the analysis of differentiation of economic development, understood as a result of differentiation of innovative development. A methodology has been designed to analyze the dynamics and differentiation of innovation activity of Russian enterprises over a long period of development (2010–2023 with details for 2010–2014, 2015–2018 and 2019–2023), taking into account changes in the methodology of statistical observation. An important feature of the methodology is tracking the innovative development of territories both in terms of the costs of innovation activities and the production of innovative goods, which allows using a common economic grouping of regions. The trends in regional innovative development have been identified in terms of changes in innovation activity and its differentiation within the economic groups of regions, which allowed formulating some hypotheses about the relationship between innovative and economic development of Russia’s regions; the hypotheses are to be tested in future studies.