Кластерная политика как инновационный инструмент развития региональной экономики: опыт формирования кластеров за рубежом и в России

The main problem of functioning and development of the Russian economy as a system of interacting regions is the exceptional heterogeneity and inhomogeneous development of the socio-economic space. The problem of spatial heterogeneity initiates the creation of a new paradigm of territorial organization and accelerated transformation of the socio-economic space, which requires structural changes in the economy by creating new, innovative and socially-oriented model, raising economic effectiveness of the territories, to stimulate the positive and to overcome the negative trends of socio-economic development through effective and efficient use of available potential in the regions. The paper substantiates the rationale of development and implementation of the cluster policy as an innovative tool of transformation of socio-economic space, aimed at solving existing problems of territorial development of regions of the Russian Federation. During implementation of the goal the paper shows characteristics, including the strengths and weaknesses of existing foreign models of clustering; it reflects the results of the development process of clustering in the Russian Federation; the rationale of creating the special conditions that help to solve specific problems arising in the implementation of processes of a clustering in the Russian Federation; shows the process of cluster policy, defines the tasks to be addressed by cluster policy, the peculiarities complicating the implementation of cluster policy in the Russian Federation. Based on the identified factors complicating the implementation of regional cluster policy in the Russian Federation and taking into account specific features of development of economy of the Russian Federation, the author proposes solutions for effective implementation of cluster policy in the regions.