Scientific and technological potential of the territories of Russia and China: assessment and development prospects

Russia and China are among the world’s leading powers, and they exert significant impact on the world economy and the world’s largest markets. In addition, these countries are global scientific centers and occupy leading positions in several branches of science. The intensification of cooperation between Russia and China in recent years is a reason for a growth of interest in studying their scientific and technological potential and finding possible points of interaction in this direction. The problems of socio-economic and scientific and technological development of both countries have much in common, and this fact also increases the interest in its comparative evaluation and the study of the experience of overcoming current problems. In this regard, the goal of the study is to assess the scientific and technological potential and identify areas of its development in Russia and China. Proceeding from the goal, the article studies theoretical aspects of scientific and technological development of territories and provides our own interpretation of the concept “scientific and technological potential” based on the combined option that unites the resource-based and effective approaches to this economic category. We develop a technique for comparative assessment of scientific and technological development of territories of two (and more) countries, allowing the regions to be ranked according to the level of scientific and technological potential on the basis of an integral index providing a comprehensive assessment of territories’ potential. We also use the technique to assess the drivers of scientific and technological development of territories of the two countries and reveal the problems typical of both Russia and China. We present the results of systematization of the experience of their constituent entities leading in scientific and technological development; this experience proves that the government engages in systematic work to support the development of science and technology. In conclusion we emphasize once again the presence of a significant differentiation of scientific and technological development of regions in the countries under consideration. At the next stages of the research, we plan to develop a system of measures for all their subjects grouped according to the level of scientific and technological development.