Creative economy and creative clusters in territorial development: analysis of Russian practices

The article considers the key aspects of Russian creative clusters, their role in the socio-economic development of territories. The aim of the research is to identify the role of creative clusters in smoothing the territorial differences of regions in the context of sustainable regional development based on the analysis of problem areas and development trends of creative industries and creative clusters in the territorial development of the Russian economy. The paper applies analytical methods, provides our classifi cation of the main activities of creative clusters and the results they achieve, including at the expense of their inherent innovative component, identifi es the key development trends of creative clusters and formulates problem areas that hinder the successful development, in particular, insuffi cient elaboration of theoretical and methodological aspects of the formation and development of creative clusters. Often, they are created by regional administrations as a tribute to the current agenda of creative industries, impression economy, or are formed by market participants themselves, most often based on the principle of territorial or industry proximity. However, cluster participants quickly encounter the specifi cs of intra-cluster competition as a necessary development factor described by M. Porter, but they do not possess the necessary tools and techniques to solve this problem. Thus, the formation of creative clusters in the Russian practice is carried out by trial and error, there is no systematic scientifi c approach. Direct borrowing of foreign experience without proper understanding and adaptation to the development of Russian regions and territories is doubtful. The feature of this work is a comprehensive study of the role of creative clusters in the formation of the image and brand of territories; we consider their positive impact on both the economic performance of regions and social and cultural development. The drivers of economic and technological growth of the regions are the innovative component of activity and the development of scientifi c and educational organizations in clusters. We give examples of successfully operating clusters and projects in the creative economy, and formulate the directions for their improvement.